Fate-history break
by TimeForced
Summary: The journey to greatness is often a solo road. Reaching heights unknown requires trailblazers and innovators. But even these great people need teachers and mentors. Masters. The lessons and skills taught to him by his own Masters changed Shirou Emiya's fate. They broke the world's hold on him, and replaced it with something else. Whether for good or for ill remains to be seen
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own neither Fate/stay night nor Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple. Their owners are Type-moon and Syun Matsuena respectively.

* * *

Shirou grimaced as he rolled his shoulder, feeling the recently repaired bones grind against one another. He had just resigned from the archery club due to the scar that had already half-formed on his skin. In reality, he had only left to focus on his part-time job and to quiet Shinji down. Taiga had been complaining recently about Shinji constantly bringing the topic up, and Shirou had decided that he might as well make it easier on everyone and leave the club, especially considering that he had only been in it for just under two months.

It was likely that Sakura had already gotten home and started cleaning up the house while he was helping Shinji finish up with the last of the bows. Shinji had kept going on about making it to Captain of the archery club within a year, and Shirou had given him some tips for his shooting to help his friend get the position. The two were still at odds, at least slightly, but ever since Shirou decided to resign from the club Shinji had stopped being so openly antagonistic. Relative to his usual brand of in your face insults anyways.

Shirou hoped that his shoulder would be fully healed soon, so that Sakura didn't have to come over and help him anymore and so that his employers didn't have to wait for him to start heavy work again. He wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do until his shoulder got better, but he figured that he might as well help Issei and anyone else who asked.

A confrontation on the road up ahead caught Shirou's eye. A couple of thugs had stopped their car in the middle of the street, for no apparent reason, and were harrassing an old man and some girl that Shirou didn't recognize. The uniform she wore indicated that she was from Homurahara Gakuen like him, which was strange because Shirou figured that he would have heard about a girl who looked as good as her.

But that was besides the point, because his legs had already taken him halfway across the block, and the...conversation, was already becoming audible.

"-only deserve to walk on the side! That's the nature of things, got it?" The age and clothes of the men indicated that they weren't part of Fujimura-san's local branch, so Shirou couldn't just get rid of them by playing that card. Looks like the hard way.

The second thug, a mustachioed, tan, and broad shouldered classic gang member, smirked down at the girl, "That's right, because we're strong, we can do anything we want!"

The first one, still looming over the girl, leaned back and swept an arm at the surroundings, "Just see for yourself! All these guys are obeying our rule-hey! Who're you glaring at, ya little punk?" Shirou kept walking forward, the three random thugs finally noticing his determined approach. The first turned and leaned forward to snear right into Shirou's face, "This your girlfriend, boy? Think you're gonna be a big man and defend her?"

The other two made to laugh but Shirou just nodded, shifting to get around them and next to the girl. The one right in front of him snatched a hand out and grabbed Shirou's left arm, jerking him to a stop. Shirou matched his glare, though he couldn't quite pull off the snarl that the older man used. "What the hell are you doing, punk. You have to stop and pay respect to your elders and betters."

Shirou put force behind his words, "I'm sorry, but I can't just stand around and watch you harrass a girl and an old man. If you continue I'll stop you." He jerked his arm with enough strength to break the thug's grip and darted past him, standing next to the girl in the center of the small circle.

The tanned thug growled at him and reached over, grabbing a handful of Shirou's shirt. "What did you say you little shit!"

Shirou knocked the arm aside with a blow from his left hand, following it up with a shoulder charge to knock the guy over. The first and third thug reacted quickly, one getting a punch in on Shirou while the other moved to restrain the girl. In the meantime, Shirou managed to shoot off a quick warning before he got in close with his chosen target, "Oi, get out of here!"

Shirou hissed as he felt his bones grind against each other once more, but pushed past his suddenly blotchy vision to spin and drive a fist right at his attacker. His punch met a solid guard, making no headway, but it ended up meaning little.

A blur of motion and the man in front of him flew sideways, the guy's head probably ringing from a heavy impact. Shirou couldn't help the involuntary widening of his eyes when he saw the blond girl from before twist into a smooth landing from the violent double kick she had just unleashed on the guy. The adrenaline rush of the moment seemed to slow everything down, and for that instant all Shirou could do was watch her spin through the air, braid whipping in a circle around her head and movements as graceful as a gliding bird.

The moment ended and from behind Shirou heard a shout of anger. He whipped around to catch sight of the tan thug ripping a knife from his pocket and preparing to charge the blonde girl. The sight of the bare steel, pointing straight at the unaware girl, sent every alarm bell in his head off.

With nary a thought, Shirou sprinted to intercept the man, but before he could get over there the girl had kicked backwards, sending the knife flying.

Again, she spun into the air and a moment later the thug was laying on the ground, completely incapacitated. Shirou glanced around for the knife, making sure it hadn't hit anyone and double-checking the other two thugs for weapons of their own.

A stab of pain made it through his concentration, causing Shirou to grimace. He heard an intake of breath nearby.

"Oh no! Are you hurt?"

Shirou shook his head at the girl, who had her hand on her mouth. "No, it's fine. Just an injury from one of my clubs. More importantly, did you get any injuries from kicking that knife?" Shirou looked her over for a second, but then he realized just what it might seem like he was doing and blushed, turning away slightly.

The girl just shook her head, long blond braid twisting with the motion. "No, I can handle a little trouble like that easily. But thank you for the help!"

Shirou smiled happily, "No thanks needed, I'm just glad to help. Do you need me to walk you home or something?" Belatedly, he recalled the old man who had fallen to the ground. His cursory search revealed nothing, and he had a moment of consternation that the man hadn't even stuck around to thank the girl for going to the trouble of saving him.

It was the girl's turn to blush, before she straighted up slightly, eyes wide. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I forgot my manners!" She bowed slightly, "my name is Fuurinji Miu, a freshman at Homurahara Gakuen."

Shirou returned the bow automatically, "My name is Emiya Shirou, also a freshman at Homurahara, it is nice to meet you."

She smiled at him again, "It is nice to meet you too, Emiya-san. Maybe I'll see you at school sometime?"

Shirou nodded, "Yeah, just ask for Shirou or Emiya and someone will point me out to you."

* * *

Whistling, Shirou walked under the high stone wall that headed straight for the school. Sakura had left for her middle school before he did, and now that he was no longer in the archery club he didn't have to worry about showing up early in the morning. He was still early enough to beat the student rush, though there were a few other high schoolers ahead and behind him.

A familiar head of hair, an uncommon golden blonde, caught his eye. Shirou tried to figure out why it was familiar before he remembered the girl from the day before. At the time, he hadn't really thought on it, but the speed and skill that she displayed put to shame anything he had ever seen. He had run over that moment in his head all night, and he'd come to a conclusion about himself, though he was reluctant to ask his question.

But just like with Kiritsugu, even if he had to beg and trouble another, he would try and find a way to become stronger. He had to, if he wanted to save others and become a hero.

Squaring his shoulders, Shirou caught up to the girl, Furinji Miu if he remembered correctly. "Ohayou, Furinji-san!"

Miu turned around at his voice, face lighting up. "Emiya-san! How are you doing today?"

Shirou rubbed the back of his head, "I'm doing okay. Hey listen..." Pausing, Shirou lowered his arm, unsure where to put it and not really sure how to go about asking her his question. With a sigh, Shirou decided to just power stubbornly through like he always did. Miu had by then started to tilt her head to the side, looking vaguely like a curious cat. "Furinji-san, I was just wondering where you learned to move and fight like you did yesterday."

The girl cocked her head further to the side and took a second before her eyes lit up with understanding. "Oh! You mean where I learned my martial arts?"

Shirou nodded, still not sure how to go about his request. "I recently resigned from the archery club, and I kind of..." He hesitated, but figured that he had to put everything on the table if he was going to ask her for something. "I need to get stronger."

Miu regarded him with a faint and innocent curiousity, but Shirou couldn't help but feel like he was under a microscope. The feeling only intensified when she asked a question of her own with eyes that seemed to be targeting his very soul. "Why?"

Shirou glanced away, eyes focused on the sky and face a little red. He sheepishly scratched the back of his head and shot her a nervous glance before coughing and plowing on. "I need to get stronger so that I can really save people. I didn't do all that much yesterday."

She cocked her head to the side again, giving him another few seconds of silence to sweat about her response to his dream, however roundabout the confession had been. She smiled at him, a bright smile that made him pause in his nervous glancing around and instead focus all of his attention on her. For a moment, all he could do was think about how pretty she was, before he caught what he was thinking and nervously continued avoiding her eyes. She answered him brightly, "That's really cool!" She put her hand to her face to think while Shirou gaped at her, unused to anyone (read Taiga) taking his dream seriously. "Well, my grandfather is the one who trained me when I was a kid, but right now we just moved into a new dojo in town. If you want, you can stop by about training there."

Shirou continued to gape at her, but shoved it aside and grinned happily at her. "Thanks a lot, Furinji-san. If you want, I can bring some food over or something like that when I visit. How many people would it be needed for?"

She suddenly got very intense, giving him a look like a hawk who had just spotted a rabbit a mile below. "Would you really? If you can cook for 8-no better make that 16-then that would be great."

Shirou backed up slightly at her focus but just nodded, "Yeah, I can do that. Would tonight be okay?" Why did it sound like they were eating dinner AT the dojo? Did they live there?

She smiled back at him. "That would be fine." Unexpectedly, her smile became more hesitant. She lifted a leg up and began to twist her foot on the ground. Looking away, in a darting manner similar to Shirou's earlier actions, she asked her own question. "Um...Emiya-san, no one has ever protected me before like yesterday...so I was wondering if you would like to be friends?"

Shirou blinked slowly, then smiled, "I would be happy to. You can call me Shirou in that case."

Another blindingly bright, blue-eyed and pearly white smile broke upon her face. "Okay, Shirou-kun!"

* * *

The massive, slightly beaten and worn, gate did not make for a very inviting picture. The gate itself didn't mesh very well with the wall to the two sides, seeming to meet it unevenly. Then again, Shirou remembered how his house had looked when Kiritsugu had first taken him there. And now? Now he wouldn't ever consider any other place to be his true home, not after living there for so long.

Shrugging, Shirou stepped forward to push the entrance to Ryozanpaku open, only to find it impossible. Scratching his head, he looked around for a lock, peeking in and attempting to knock a few times. The lack of a bell pull or some type of ringer confused him. With a sigh, he tried pushing at the door once more, and to his great surprise it gave just a little. Deciding that he should do something after coming all this way, he pushed with all his might on one of the two doors, but his progress was painfully slow, a creaking pace like the opening of fortress gates. Unexpectedly, a big hand tapped the door, forcing it open with bone-jarring force.

Shirou face-planted on the ground, grumbling slightly as he stood up. 'Who did that? Just shoved open a door that someone else was opening? It was like pulling out a chair that someone was about to sit in.'

He tried to get a good look of the person who had opened the heavy door for him like it was nothing. Then he had to look up. And then again. A long white beard accompanied by white hair and a wise face? That fit the old martial arts master stereotype. The whole, "cannon barrel arms," part didn't fit very well at all.

Remebering his manners, Shirou straightened up and then bowed, "Hello. My name is Emiya Shirou, and I was wondering if this was Ryozanpaku?"

The giant old man leaned down, one bushy brow quirked as he examined Shirou. On Shirou's part, the lack of response and frankly massive and intimidating frame had him sweating in his shoes. But he remembered the ease with which this man had opened the heavy door, and decided that he had to do anything possible to reach that level of strength.

"Hmmmmm..." For a moment, Shirou thought a truck had parked out front or a small earthquake had struck, but then he realized that the rumble was coming from the old man in front of him. "Yes, Miu mentioned that you would be coming. I must say, I'm surprised that you offered to bring dinner. Could it be that you went and got take out for us all?"

Shirou lifted the big basket he had shoved all of the food in, gesturing to it with his chin, "No, I cooked the food at home. I made lotus root chicken for the primary dish, if that sounds alright."

A whirlwind of activity, a parade of monsters, a funeral march of the absurd: those were the only words Shirou could think of. The first man to descend upon the basket was a giant, dark-skinned and silver-haired man with an almost innocent look on his face. The second was another giant of man, this time wearing a leather jacket and sporting a large scar across his nose and face. Both were twice Shirou's size, and the two quickly started to argue over the food, and by extension, Shirou.

"Wait a sec, Apachai! We gotta get this back into the house so we can eat it later, not now!"

"Apachai! It smells good!"

A third blur, much smaller than the other two, bounded through everyone and somehow snatched a roll from the basket before Shirou had a chance to separate the existence of three new people crowding his personal space. The blur resolved itself into a short man with a hat wearing Chinese clothing.

Shirou blinked as the two larger newcomers moved off towards the buildings, one arguing forcefully and the other happily replying. A massive hand clapped down on his shoulder, and Shirou blinked again as he turned to the gigantic old man who had first greeted him. "Don't worry, you get used to it. My name is Furinji Hayato." A gleam of eyes through bushy brows. "Now, if this cooking is worthy, we might consider taking you on as a Disciple."

Shirou gulped at a sudden feeling of foreboding, as if a thousand souls were crying out in shared pain and misery.

* * *

The next day, he showed up at the gate ready for training right after school. He had had to make do with his part-time earnings, but apparently the meal had been enough to convince them to lower the entrance fee. The most amazing thing of all, though, had been one of the masters who ate with them. The man's name had been Akisame, and within a few moments he had set Shirou's shoulder in such a way that it no longer ground when Shirou shifted it. He could even lift heavy loads without worry, though impacts were apparently a bad idea. Wearing a mustache and hakama, Akisame fit the image of a wise Master so perfectly that Shirou felt rather reassured to have him as a teacher.

The other masters had introduced themselves, sort of. The first and largest, dark skinned man, Apachai Hopachai, had been rather enthusiastic in greeting Shirou and eating his food, to the point that Shirou wondered who was more childish, Taiga or the big martial artist. The second, the leather jacket wearing Shio Sakaki, had declared that he would never take a Disciple. The third, the smaller Chinese man Ma Kensei, had taken Shirou's easy reply to that declaration and decided that Shirou was more interested in looking good in front of girls. Which meant, to Ma, that Shirou was the perfect candidate for reformation through teaching his various special techniques for getting the better of women, otherwise known as peeping.

A fourth, Shigure Kousaka, had spoken in an absolute monotone, introducing herself and commenting that Shirou's hobby of cooking was not very manly, but the food was very good. He would have been offended, but he was distracted by her large assets barely contained by a sheer-cut pink kimono. Along with her long black ponytail, he'd been to busy trying to keep his mind on track to pay attention.

All told there were six Masters at the dojo, though Akisame had been made Shirou's Master for the time being. He and Kensei fussed a little more over Shirou's shoulder and sent him home saying that he needed at least one day of rest so that his shoulder could firm up more, and then they would begin teaching Shirou martial arts.

At least, that was what Shirou had expected.

Instead, he was now getting dragged through the gate and positioned in a squat over a burning candle, with two heavy weights in his arms and various sharp implements pointing at him to force him to stay still.

"What the hell is this!" Truth be told, Shirou was well used to pain in training, but this was just ridiculous.

The man had the gall to look wise, kneeling and sipping hot tea while Shirou sweated and strained to keep still under the weight. "You are well-developed for your age, but for the needs of this dojo you are woefully inadequate. Even more, we cannot teach you techniques or spar whilst your shoulder finishes mending, so for now we are simply going to build your body. This is a wonderful opportunity to strengthen your shoulder by gently stressing it!"

Shirou threw back his head and yelled at the sky, "This is not gentle!"

Really, Shirou was perfectly capable of being stubborn and doing reckless things, but even for him this was to far.

* * *

To Shirou's great relief, he was let out of his squat before he collapsed from the strain. To Shirou's great horror, he was tied to a big sled which his Master sat on. He was then told to run all the way to the Shinto train station.

"That's embarassing!" The annoyed yell actually raced far afield of Shirou, who was straining to stay ahead of the cracking whip being held by Akisame.

Akisame cut a terrifying figure with his glowing eyes and sadistic glee, but his response came out perfectly reasonable. "You must be willing to endure anything if you wish to follow the path of Martial Arts. What is a little shame in return for greater strength?"

Shirou would have sighed in resignation, but he was to busy panting from the effort of running as fast as he could.

...

"I have seen rocks that moved faster than you!"

* * *

By the end of the day, Shirou could barely move. He was laying flat out on his back, legs burning and shoulder throbbing. The entire run had taken nearly two hours, despite being a supposed sprint. It ended up being more of a whip torture session.

Akisame seemed satisfied, at least. "Good. Your development has just begun, though, so do not rest on your laurels." Shirou have a half-hearted wheeze, struggling mightily to snort derisively at the implication that he had triumphed over something. "We will continue tomorrow, so be here directly after school."

Shirou struggled up for a half a second, managing a strange sort of sitting bow as he did so. "Thank you, Koetsuji-sensei."

Akisame paused, and gave Shirou a small nod, "You are indeed not a rude child."

As Shirou collapsed, saving energy for the walk home, he did his best to divert blood and other bodily resources to his brain so that he could figure out if that was an insult or not.

* * *

That night, Shirou was forced to sit in his workshop with his back resting against the wall so that he wouldn't collapse. Apachai had given him a stick to walk home with, and Shirou could honestly say that he had flashbacks to Kiritsugu's smiling face when his Father had saved him from the flaming ruins of Fuyuki, such was his relief that one of the Masters was sane and kind. Well, kind anyways. Better than Fuji-nee, at least.

With a huff, Shirou expelled the air in his lungs and calmed his breathing, which had taken ten minutes just to get under control. Concentrating, he emptied all of the stress and exertion of the day, pulling his body from its tiredness and focusing his will on his body.

It felt like a hot bar of iron, heated in a furnace till it was glowing white with heat, entered his spine. But as always, Shirou pushed on past the pain of creating a magic circuit from his nerves. Today he had had his fair share of struggle, but his daily Magecraft training must continue, if he ever truly wanted to be a hero.

Shirou practiced his magecraft steadily for an hour, and when his makeshift circuit finally cooled off, Shirou let a satisfied smile cross his face. With his own training in magecraft, and new Masters willing to teach him even more, he was surely on his way to becoming a superhero and saving everyone.

* * *

It took roughly a week for Taiga to get fed up with Shirou's late homecomings and generally beat up condition. In that time, she attempted to corner him every lunch only for him to dissappear. After school, he was gone before she got a chance to do anything, and even at breakfast he was so dead tired that she could get little more than vague responses about martial arts and training.

Of course, Taiga was recalling when he was younger and would come back beat to hell by bullies that he had stood up to for no apparent reason. So, in the interests of protecting her meal ticket...-ahem- little brother, Taiga ordered a few of her grandpa's guys to tail Shirou and figure out what he was doing.

Apparently Shirou was in fact going to a dojo, one that was brand new to town, every day after school. He would go in, not quite fresh but certainly okay, and come out a few hours later after dark fell with his body barely managing to stagger back home. Even more disturbing were the rumors circling town of the red haired boy seen dragging someone on a sled around town at a dead run.

So Taiga was going to come to the rescue like a good big sister.

Drooling slightly at the thought of getting Shirou back in the kitchen (Sakura had improved greatly in the few weeks that Shirou had actually been home to help cook dinner, and when they worked together on breakfast it was heavenly, but without Shirou there for dinner it just wasn't the same), Taiga walked up to the front door of the dojo, Tora-shinai sheathed in its tiger-print cloth bag.

The lack of a doorbell of some kind was annoying, but Taiga was okay with that. "Yosh! Let's see what's going on inside today!"

A quick scramble and Taiga had made it to the top of the wall. Let it never be said that Taiga Fujimura was a strictly law-abiding citizen.

"Hello."

Taiga jerked sideways, arms flailing comically as she straightened atop the tiled wall and tried to get a look at the person who had appeared from nowhere just to her right. "Kyaaaahh!"

A crash and billowing of dust greeted Taiga on the inside of the wall. Groaning, Taiga sat up with wide, teary eyes, "Waaaahh! That hurt!" Whirling about, she pointed up at the wall, "You!" only to see that it was empty. "Huh?" She scratched her head, standing up from the ground and dusting her back off. "Where'd you go?"

"Who are you?"

Prepared, Taiga flipped Tora-shinai around and swung it, the cloth cover coming off with a noise akin to ripping paper. "Hya! You think you can-where'd you go?" Blinking in confusion, she turned around and tried to find the person who was tormenting her. A lightbulb went off in her head. "Aha! You can throw your voice, can't you! Well I won't fall for your dirty tricks like Shirou-kun did!" Clenching her fist, Taiga struck a pose and raised her arm in challenge.

"How does one...throw a voice?"

Taiga put her hands on her hips and "humphed" triumphantly with her eyes closed, "Don't think you can get me by playing stupid." She raised her head, holding Tora-shinai out. "I will find you, just you wait!"

"I am...here."

Taiga lightly waved her shinai around in the direction of the voice, expecting it to meet no resistance. "Didn't I already tell you-what?" She turned around to see Tora-shinai resting on the head of a woman with zero expression on her face, regarding the practice sword carefully. "Kyaa! You really were there the whole time!" Jumping back, Taiga got into a kendo stance but the woman stayed still, not moving to draw the sword that had caused Taiga to retreat.

She cocked her head almost imperceptibly to the side, checking out Taiga's stance. "You are...good."

Taiga smiled, preening at the praise yet also appearing unaccountably bloodthirsty. "I will defeat you and take Shirou-kun home where he belongs! Cooking me dinner!"

Tora-shinai teleported, going from Taiga's hand to the hands of the woman, who was now standing alongside Taiga inspecting the blade with a blank gaze. "But not...good enough."

Taiga stared at her, dumbfounded for a moment, until the woman slowly raised a hand and clenched it in triumph, giving a small 'Yes!' gesture. Taiga mostly ignored the movement, instead falling to her knees and wailing at the sky. "Waaaaahhh! Now Shirou-kun won't come home and spend time with his big sister anymore!"

"Fuji-nee!? What are you doing here?"

Taiga jumped up, all smiles and brightness again. "Shirou-kun!" In a flash, she crossed the distance and grabbed onto Shirou's hand. "Come on, Shirou! We need to go home so you can keep teaching Sakura how to cook dinner! I mean, to keep you away from these nasty martial artists!" Shirou flailed wildly in her grip, or at least as wildly as a limp noodle could move itself. Taiga headed straight for the woman holding Tora-shinai, reaching over to grab the wooden practice sword and yank it away. Her tug proved ineffectual. "Let...go!" She strained, dropping Shirou to the ground and putting both hands, feet, and her back into pulling the weapon away, but the woman didn't budge.

Shirou sighed on the ground, "Fuji-nee. I'm training here. I really do want to go home and help out, since I feel terrible that Sakura is doing so much for me, but this is important."

Taiga let go of the shinai, gasping, and rounded on Shirou. Her eyes blazed and a phantom tiger roared along with her. "Whatever happened to that wonderful little Shirou that I remember! The one who would help out around the house without question! You get home right now and take over cleaning the house!"

Shirou looked away, ashamed. "I know. I really am the worst for making Sakura help out so much, but this has to be done. If I don't..."

Taiga paused, giving Shirou a close look. Then she leaned back, crossed her arms, and gave him a knowing smirk. "Heh heeeeee~. You're still on about that aren't you, Shirou-kun~"

Shirou glared at her, "Stupid Fuji-nee. I thought we agreed not to bring up old things like that!"

Taiga wagged a finger at him. "Now, now Shirou. If you don't want me to tell anyone, you should just forget about it and come home to cook quietly for me."

Shirou shook his head, "I'm really sorry, Fuji-nee, but this is something that I have to do. If I don't get stronger, then I can never live up to my Father's dream."

Taiga stopped looking quite so superior, losing her childish exuberance for a moment and narrowing her eyes at Shirou. For a while, she simply stood above Shirou, who was still flat out on the ground, and stared into his eyes. Then she humphed, turning around and grabbing Tora-shinai lightly. The woman let it go without resistance, and Taiga started to head for the wall she had come in by. She waved over her shoulder. "Fine, Shirou-kun! But you better make sure to spend extra time with us at breakfast then!"

Shirou sighed on the ground, ignoring the blank gaze that Shigure was giving him. Somehow, he wasn't sure how, but somehow, he just knew that gaze was asking him what he had meant earlier, and just why Taiga had so easily accepted his explanation. "Well, back to Akisame-sensei. I have to make the most of my time."

* * *

Shirou struggled through the pillars of wood, doing his best to hold the weights in his outstretched hands. He was slightly proud that he could manage to lift a pair of rocks nearly as big as his chest, but it was obviously not enough for his Masters. Still, he ploughed on, staggering here and there when he almost overbalanced.

"Lower your head more!" A stick wielded by Akisame whished through the air, scraping his scalp and ruffling his short hair. "Weave through the pegs quickly!" The switch continued to fly through the air, smacking Shirou whenever he stumbled or slowed down. Shirou did his best to keep up, trying to get his body to move correctly.

"Do you understand why we are doing this training!" Akisame paused in his hitting, but made sure to prod Shirou back into his scrambled movements.

Shirou couldn't really think while concentrating on weaving back and forth through the pegs, but he tried to answer Akisame anyways. "To get stronger?"

Akisame whacked him on the head, "No! You must think deeper! What is the underlying reason for the training?"

"Ack!..." Shirou stumbled again, trying to find an answer. "Um...to build a foundation?"

Akisame whacked him on the head again, "Yes!" Shirou tried to rub his head as he grumbled about unreasonable Masters, but Akisame smacked the arm before he could put the rock down. "There is a saying that "Power is the foundation of everything." No matter how polished its skills are, an ant cannot defeat an elephant."

Shirou narrowed his eyes, again trying to think through the situation. "So then...I am the ant?"

Akisame gave him a deadpan stare. "Aren't you insulting it? The ant, I mean?"

Shirou cocked his head, pausing in his back and forth movements. Then his head fell slightly, along with his arms, an air of depression falling for a half a moment before he straightened and continued moving. "So then I have a lot of improving to do, don't I? Even if I can't challenge the elephant, I can at least get stronger than the ant."

"Shirou. An ant has the strength to lift something that is a few times heavier than its body weight." Akisame gazed into the distance, hair obscuring his eyes as Shirou paused in his movements once more. "Learn from the ant, but don't give up on surpassing the elephant."

He turned back around as Shirou faced him, still squating and holding out the stones. "So, what do I need to do to surpass the elephant, Koetsuji-sensei?" A certain light had kindled in his eyes, as if the distant goal was not so impossible, even if he would have reached for it anyways.

Akisame laughed. "First, we shall take a break. It does no good to work out constantly, as the body needs a chance to rebuild."

Shirou nodded decisively, setting down the stones and sitting. Collapsing was a more accurate description, but Shirou would never acknowledge that fact.

On the patio of the dojo, several of the Masters had gathered, drinking tea and watching the newest disciple train. Elder Furinji spoke up, chuckling triumphantly. "As expected, it was a good thing to make Koetsuji teach. He does it well." Shigure sat next to him, sword sheathed and face unchanging. Apachai sat next to her and smiled happily, nodding with Hayato. "He understands the young man's heart well, and controls it properly."

In the background, Shirou attempted to sit up as Akisame stood and said, "Okay, break time's over!"

Above the three Masters, reclining on the roof, Sakaki barked out a few laughs. "Pfft. If he continues being so stubborn, the kid'll drive himself into the ground without going anywhere."

Furinji laughed again, a deep rumbling belly laugh. "Ho ho. Then Sakaki, do you want to train him instead?"

Sakaki looked away even though no one could see him, "N-no way. I don't train disciples!"

Apachai hopped up, pointing at himself, "Then Apachai thinks he should teach that boy as well!"

Shigure's response was deadpan, as usual. "You...don't even think about it."

The Elder did his best to cheer up the suddenly depressed giant of a man, "Well, maybe when Shirou is a little stronger!"

The last Master, Ma, popped up next to where Akisame was running Shirou through his paces, "Your sides are too sloppy!"

Shirou glanced at him, still straining to hold up his weights and keep his squat steady. "Eh?"

Ma got down next to him, squatting as well and going through the steps. "Extend your leg first, then carry the weight. You can use the foot's surface to gain balance."

"Like this?" Shirou attempted to imitate the movement, moving a little jerkily but otherwise getting it.

Nodding, Ma moved through the rest of the step again to show Shirou, "Right. Use the center of the foot to focus on gaining balance!"

As Shirou settled into practicing the steps, Akisame watched carefully then spoke aside to Ma. "Isn't that "Bear Step" from Chinese Kung Fu?"

Ma nodded, leaning over to whisper. "Since he's already learning different techniques, I figured that learning a bit of Kung Fu wouldn't hurt either."

Akisame rubbed his mustache. "I'm not sure if he can handle it, but you might be right. He certainly seems determined enough, and his body is at least well-coordinated. What was the saying? 'To neither kill nor save the Disciple?'"

Ma smiled evily, glancing over at where Shirou continued on obliviously. "If he dies in the process, then we'll just continue on and accept it. We can always go out and find more raw material to experiment with."

"Apachai!" The big man stood nearby, clenching his fists excitedly at learning how to teach a Disciple.

Shirou shivered, but passed it off as a muscle spasm. He'd been having plenty of those recently.

* * *

Flames. Death. Ruin. Smoke. All about was nothing but destruction, nothing but the end of humanity. People struggled with all their might, putting forth 110% to save themselves, to save others, to save valuables, to save anything that they possibly could. And yet none of those people made it. Try as they might, strive as they would, their hard work was not rewarded.

And Shirou walked through it all. Past the grasping hands and melting bodies, under the flaming street lights and pillars of blackness, through streets choked with rubble and the dying, Shirou stumbled on to save himself.

A light...and the dream ended. Chirping birds greeted Shirou's morning and he groaned. He had always thought that he was tough. He had thought his daily routine had been enough to get him prepared for the future, but it hadn't been. At least now he had a Master who willingly prepared him to continue, even if he had yet to learn any proper techniques. A good foundation was necessary, after all, and Shirou would always push on through whatever it was that he had to do to save others.

The sound of cooking in the kitchen reached him as he stumbled over. It had been getting harder and harder to get up early, but he somehow managed to get up before Sakura arrived most of the time. Today the nightmares had kept him asleep for longer, unfortunately.

"Morning Sakura." He walked into the kitchen behind her, looking over her preparations. It seemed that she had done a good job even without him there. "You've gotten really good at cooking lately."

She smiled at him. "Well, with you always out late doing your training, I've gotten lots of practice with dinner."

Shirou wilted a bit at that. "I really am sorry that I'm making you do all of this extra work to help me out around the house. If it weren't so important that I go to the dojo, then I would take care of this myself."

Sakura's smile widened slightly, her eyes gaining just a bit more light. "Don't say that, Senpai. I'm glad to come by and help out, and you already taught me so much." She lifted the dishes to take them over to the table, and Shirou's eye caught on something on her wrist.

His hand shot out, and he pulled back the sleeve of her uniform slightly to see a bruise on her wrist. His eyes widened, and then narrowed, a simmering anger in his gut. Sakura flinched at the expression on his face, almost dropping the dishes. Shirou would have noticed, but he was to busy questioning what was going on. "Sakura, what is that."

Sakura lowered her head a little, unable to meet his eyes, "...nothing."

Shirou stepped forward, insistent. "That is not 'nothing,' Sakura. Did someone do this to you? Who?"

Sakura dropped her head further, and Shirou's mind halted. For a second, he could only remember all of the rumors about Shinji and all of the little temper tantrums the boy constantly had. He growled, "It was Shinji, wasn't it." Sakura shifted her hair to cover her face and walk away, but Shirou grabbed onto her arm and turned her around to face him. "Why didn't you tell me? If I have to I'll straighten him out myself!"

Sakura looked up suddenly, giving him a strange and disbelieving look, before her expression changed to something just slightly desperate. "No! You can't fight Onii-san, it will only cause problems for you two."

Shirou shook his head fiercely, "Sakura, I can't stand by and watch this happen. I just can't."

He would never turn away from someone who needed to be saved again, never.

* * *

"Gwaaahh!" The smack of fist on flesh caused all of the gathered students to suddenly stop gossiping and whispering. Shirou ignored the onlookers, furious. It had taken everything he had to restrain himself from knocking Shinji across the block, but in the name of past friendship and at Sakura's insistence, he had held back.

"Shinji, if I ever see anything like that again, I will personally put a stop to it. Do you understand me?" His tone was heated, and his arms tense. Shinji lay there in a daze, half knocked out and barely able to get up. "I. Said. Do you understand me!"

Shinji snapped to at the commanding tone, and glared with a mixture of fear and fury. "What was that, Emiya! You think you can tell me what to do with my own family!"

Shirou snarled down at him, "If you're hurting one of them, then yes!"

Shinji scrambled back as Shirou advanced, standing in a half-crouch but unable to look away or run from the fire in Shirou's eyes. For a moment, neither of them moved, eyes locked, then Shinji's gaze darted to the side, his body turning away from the heat of his one-time friend's glare. He straighted up a moment later, eyes narrowed and face creased in anger. He raised his nose and looked down at Shirou. "You think you can push me around like some thug, Emiya? I'll show you what a real fighter is like, just you wait. There's plenty of them in town."

With that, Shinji marched away, shaking with rage. Shirou watched him go, but turned back from the purple haired boy. He didn't care what Shinji did, just so long as it wasn't directed at Sakura or anyone else.

* * *

"Hey Sakura!"

Sakura glanced about before she caught sight of him, unused to anyone calling out to her on her route back from school. Shirou waved to her, and she suddenly looked down to avoid his eyes and turn back onto her route. Shirou wasn't having any of that.

"Sakura." He caught up and reached out to grab her shoulder, turning her around again. He leaned down until he had caught her purple eyes, as dull as the day he first met her, and used his most firm and reassuring voice. "Sakura, if Shinji ever does anything like that ever again, just tell me and I'll take care of it. Now, I'm going to be spending weekends at the Ryozanpaku dojo to train because Fujimura-sama has released a bit more of the money that Dad left me. Don't worry about going to help out at my house on the weekends, and if you want to talk to me, just ask Taiga to show you where the dojo is."

Sakura gave him a quietly bewildered look, before she smiled with more feeling than he had ever seen from her. "Of course, Senpai." Then she lowered her head and scowled at him, "But you really shouldn't fight with Onii-san like that."

Shirou smiled at her scolding, glad to see life in her eyes again. "Don't worry about it Sakura, it's just a guy thing."

* * *

Shirou sat gingerly on the roof across from Miu, gobbling whatever food he could get. He didn't want to be rude, but he was seriously starving and all of his muscles hurt from being stretched way past their limits. The rotten Masters had decided that if he wanted to eat he had to catch it first, which meant that he had to beat them to the food on the table while simultaneously defending his plate. Ridiculous, cliche, and childish. It reminded him of Fuji-nee, honestly. He smiled at the thought, pausing to look at the quarter moon that was out for the night.

Miu spoke up, breaking the low sound of the wind and Shirou's eating. "It's nice, sitting down to a meal with everyone."

Shirou stopped eating again, thinking about his reply. He remembered eating with just Fuji-nee and his Dad, back when he was younger and neither of them could cook. He thought of the past two months with Sakura, a return to those days when it wasn't just him and Taiga at the table. "Yeah, it really is."

"Do you eat with your family like that every day?" Miu was looking at him happily, taking note of the smile on his face.

Shirou shrugged but nodded, "Sort of. It's more of a surrogate family than anything. There's Fuji-nee, she's been coming over to eat for as long as I can remember, and now there's also Sakura, who helped me out when I had first injured my shoulder."

Miu's eyes were curious, "So you don't have a family anymore?" At Shirou's nod, she looked slightly sheepish, "I'm sorry that I asked." Before Shirou could reassure her, her eyes got more distant, as if they were inspecting something from a vast distance. "My parents died when I was younger, and my grandfather took me in. We travelled a lot, but it wasn't until we got to Ryozanpaku that I really found a family. Everyone is so nice, even if their definition of normal is off-kilter."

Shirou smiled at her. "I'm glad you found a home. It can mean more than the world to have a proper home."

Miu's lips curled into a half-smile, and she gazed at the moon. The two sat in silence for a bit, watching the few stars that peaked through the light of the city. "Anyways, this view is amazing, isn't it?"

Shirou nodded, "It is. It reminds me of sitting on the porch with my Dad when I was younger, just watching the yard and the starry sky as he told me stories." The nostalgic smile recalled long nights with a cup of tea, and that final night in which he was given his dream by the man who had already given him everything.

"Is that your favorite spot at home?" Miu's gaze was eager, and at Shirou's affirmative she sighed in slight wonder. "This is my favorite spot. I used to have a dream, that when I made a friend one day I would gaze at the stars from on top of the dojo sitting beside them. This is a new dojo, but the feel is just the same."

Shirou stopped, watching the peaceful expression on her face, and he found himself mirroring her calm happiness. There was that usual little glow, knowing that he had helped make someone happy. There was something else, as well, but he refused to acknowledge it. He glanced down at the grounds, where he was put through his paces so that he could gain the strength necessary to save people. "So, you already fulfilled one of your dreams, huh? I'm glad that I could help."

Miu turned to him. "So, what is one of your dreams for the future?"

Shirou pursed his lips, not really sure how to answer. Technically, he had already told her, but it wasn't really in so many words nor was it a declaration of a dream, so much as a reason to get stronger. Finally, he decided to tell her, if only because she looked so happy up here. "My dream...is to get strong enough to save everyone. I want to be a hero for others, to be able to stop people from hurting with my own two hands, like my father saved me." He looked at Miu carefully, and a wry smile quirked his lips. "It looks like you're helping me to achieve my dream, by showing me Ryozanpaku. Thank you, Miu."

Down below, several of the Masters who were lounging around heard Shirou's declaration, and finally made up their minds that Shirou would indeed make for a perfect disciple of the Katsujinken.

Unaware of the decisions made in the dojo, Miu hesitated but smiled in response a moment later. Again hesitant, she shuffled her legs and looked away. "Well, since you told me your dream, I guess I'll tell you mine." She took a deep breath and faced the ground in front of her, hands wringing themselves nervously. "I want to become a good wife someday." She looked up at him, gaze unexpectedly fierce yet far cuter for it.

Shirou smiled reassuringly at her, "I'm sure you will make a beautiful bride one day." Miu blushed at that, looking away again. Shirou finally realized what he'd said, and looked away as well.

* * *

Attempting to keep up with school, cleaning the house while dead tired to keep Sakura from doing it on her own, training his magecraft late into the night, and still getting a good few hours in every day at Ryozanpaku had started to wear Shirou down. He always had a good routine going, and now that he had replaced his "helping people" time-bar the early mornings-with more training at Ryozanpaku, his mind and body were slowly wearing down. He could deal with his body being tired, that was simply another hurdle to overcome, but his mind had been hard to focus on tasks lately, as if everything was scattering his thoughts.

He needed to find his center, and he could really only think of one way to do that without resorting to more magecraft training, which was as straining to his mind as everything else, or cooking.

"Shigure-san, is there anywhere that I can practice archery?"

He didn't feel right going to the archery range at school having so recently left. For now, he would see if he could take his time and get some repititions in at Ryozanpaku.

Shigure silently pointed to a corner of the grounds, where a target was set up for ranged practice, probably for her weapons. Shirou smiled at her, "Thanks, Kousaka-sensei." He hurried off, unaware of her little fist pump behind him. He was equally unaware of the darting shapes the pursued him across the dojo grounds.

To an outside observer, the sight would be distinctly reminiscent of a horror movie as the protagonist, or first victim, wandered out into the woods alone.

Blissfully unaware of his stalkers, Shirou set his feet apart and assumed the stance he had been taught at the club, taking out the borrowed bow and stringing it. Controlling his breathing, he made himself into nothing and let loose his concentration, both focused and unfocused in his mind. He grabbed arrows from his quiver and smoothly drew and fired them, one after the other, sliding through the eight steps of kyudo. Each arrow followed the path he imagined.

The arrows steadily thunked into the targets, forming an expanding ring.

In the trees nearby, on the wall, and kneeling atop the dojo, the Masters watched him practice his archery as he had been taught at school.

Furinji Hayato, the Invincible Superman, smiled in satisfaction. "So he does have a talent, and in Sei no less."

* * *

The night was as calm as always, the streets leading from Ryozanpaku to his house empty thanks to the unusually late hour. Shirou walked home slowly, conserving what energy he could. All things considered, he was doing far better than he used to, but he had a feeling that his magecraft training had suffered from his fatigue every night. Shirou sighed at that thought: what magecraft training? He was determined to advance in his father's craft no matter the cost or obstacle, but he knew it would be years before he could truly do anything with it.

For now, he was satisfied to be making headway by using the route provided to him by the Masters at Ryozanpaku. He had no true idea what he would do to repay them, but he could only believe that they had helped him as much as his father.

"Oi! You Emiya Shirou?"

The loud, guttural call that demanded his attention broke through Shirou's haze. He turned lethargically to whoever it was and squinted with tired eyes, trying to figure out whether or not he knew the person. "Yeah, how can I help you?"

There were five of them, fairly big teenagers who looked to be between their second and third years in upper-secondary school. In the front, a muscled thug sauntered forward, all cocky arrogance and superior attitude. "So you're the punk who's been goin around town and saying you could beat any gang in Shinto?"

Shirou gave him a look that was equal parts confusion and disbelief. He did his best to think a way around the situation or even to figure out just what the hell was going on, but decided that there was nothing he could do. He shook his head in exasperation, "I have no idea what you are talking about."

The punch caught him completely unaware in the half-lit street.

"Gaah!" Shirou fell down on all fours, surprised and a little punch drunk from the long day and this last blow to the head. As if from a far distance he heard the cocky one scoffing.

"Hah! You think you can shoot your mouth off and get away scott free by playing dumb? Get real, fool!" Shirou forced himself to stand, legs and shoulders aching from the training he had been doing that day. The one who punched him was actually posing, arms crossed and head jutting forward aggressively at Shirou as he laughed.

Shirou spat, a little bit of blood hitting the ground. "What was that about?"

The leader, or at least Shirou guessed he was the leader, got into a street brawling stance and moved forward. "Oh? Still playing dumb? I wanna see if you can actually live up to your boasts. Lets hope so, or else I'm gonna break you in half for making me come all the way out here for nothin."

The first punch came for him, a wide haymaker. The Masters had yet to properly teach him anything beyond various ways of moving, but Shirou had never let a little thing like having no idea what to do slow him down. The response was instinctual, a rapid step to the side that spun him past the opponents guard and then a second step to push past him. He hammered a haymaker into the thugs side without even thinking about it.

To Shirou's great surprise, the guy went down, sliding a few meters with a cry of pain.

Shirou could fight, certainly, having gotten in his share of schoolyard scuffles, more than his share thanks to his habit of stepping in to save others; however, he had never finished a fight...quite so quickly. Not only did he never have a reason to, but his usual method of fighting involved staying up until the other guy went down from exhaustion or gave up. Now, the punk who had challenged him was barely staggering upright, clutching his side and glaring angrily at Shirou.

"What the hell you little shit. Going for my kidney? That coulda burst it! Fuck it." A flick and a small glint of reflected light showed the pocket knife the guy had pulled out. Shirou tensed, knowing that he was genuinly in danger right now. His best bet was to run, otherwise he would die.

The knife came in another wild swing, and Shirou stepped back to avoid it. To his dismay, he stepped right within range of one of the other thugs, who grabbed Shirou from behind and held him tight. The guy with the knife smiled at Shirou, a distinctly unpleasant smile. Shirou struggled wordlessly, doing his best to escape and straining his arms. The smug smile faltered as Shirou forced the grip of the person behind him apart. Without pausing to wait, the guy in front lunged with his knife.

For a second, Shirou could only think about the person behind him, and he froze. The only thought he had was if the knife missed, if the knife went into the person he had already unbalanced. With a heave, he ripped his right arm free and threw it forward to hit the knife away. At the same time, he pushed back with his left, forcing the thug holding him backwards and away from the approaching weapon.

The thug with the knife kept going forwards, and the blade nicked Shirou's hand and bicep as it went past. Hissing, Shirou bulled forwards and knocked the punk over, kicking the knife away when it was dropped. The thug cried out as he fell again, only this time it was not a wordless cry. "You idiots, help me with this guy. We gotta make him pay for talking shit!"

Shirou backed away from them, warily keeping an eye on the switchblades and brass knuckles that had been drawn. His eyes darted around, knowing that he stood no chance even with the physical conditioning. He should try and run to minimize the trouble, but at this rate he was cornered and the idiots were swinging without regards to who was nearby. His gaze alighted upon a branch that had fallen from one of the trees above. Shirou moved over, shuffling carefully while the four, now five, thugs approached him threateningly. The leader had gotten up from the ground and retrieved his knife. "Just give up now, and it will all end with nothing more than that cut on your hand and a scar on your face. If you insist on being an idiot, I'm afraid I'll have to send you to the hospital to teach you a lesson. Maybe if you beg I'll pass on carving your ugly mug up; you don't really need the extra treatment."

Shirou grabbed the branch from below himself and settled into a low stance, only half listening to the boasting that the thug was going through. He closed his eyes for half a second, and constructed his magic circuit faster than ever before. His body lit on fire, the pain in his hand and arm disappearing like mist before a blaze, but he ignored the sensation and finished the circuit. "Trace. On."

A quick Structural Grasping to figure out how to reinforce it, and a Reinforcement to make the branch strong enough to stand up to the knives. A few twigs on the branch bent and cracked under the strain of prana, but otherwise the spell was successful.

Shirou sighed in relief, it looked like he had pulled it off this time. He returned his attention just in time to see the first of the thugs slash down at him. With a shout, Shirou whipped the branch to the side, and it cracked on the knife hand with enough force to break several fingers and send the blade spinning off into the night.

Shirou had only a moment to hope the knife didn't hit anyone before another thug came at him, swinging his weaponized fist. Shirou jumped back, instinctively avoiding the attack. His jump carried him further than he expected, and Shirou blinked momentarily. He focused on his legs, and realized that the act of going through with creating his magic circuit had restored his energy levels. That, and he had never jumped quite that far in his life, and he remembered one time when he had striven for hours to make a high jump that he would now, it seemed, manage with no effort.

He didn't take the time to contemplate the development, instead jumping forwards at the similarly confused thug and swinging with his branch, causing one thug to go down clutching his arm. Shirou felt his mind focus, a calm analyzation of the situation.

He was under attack, and he would defend himself quickly to put an end to the fight, but he saw no reason to cause any permanent harm. With a battle cry, he swung wildly at another two, but the third got in close with a stab. Shirou tried to spin around him as well, but the two he had been pressuring closed in, eyes sharp and angling for his chest.

A swing of his makeshift weapon blocked both attacks, but the one he had dodged made a blind cut and managed to score a long gouge, thankfully only getting the skin and little muscle on Shirou's arm. Hissing in pain, Shirou lashed out and broke a forearm. The other two had backed off, staying out of range of Shirou and his stick. Ignoring their caution, Shirou roared and charged, a wide arc of the branch forcing them back. Without waiting around, the two broke off and ran from Shirou, who by now was bleeding through his long-sleeved shirt and panting heavily.

Shirou checked the three on the ground, making sure to throw the two knives across the street. Heaving a tired sigh, he dropped the branch and called the hospital. He sat down next to the three and told them to wait for the ambulance. Settling in for a long night, he sat back and stared at the night sky. "Well, I guess I can consider that a successful use of magecraft for the night."

He didn't get back from the hospital until 2 o'clock.

* * *

The next day passed in a haze, and Shirou knew he slept through several classes, especially when Issei berated him for it during lunch. But really, he got almost no sleep the night before, and the two cuts had been deep enough to require stitches. By the time he made it to Ryozanpaku, he was barely up to making it through the door, but he pushed it open with some determination and got inside.

"Ah, Shirou, are you ready for a new element of your training?"

Shirou nodded at Akisame, straightening up and getting ready for another day. He followed Akisame into the dojo, where a strange, man shaped statue stood in the center of the tatami mat floor. Akisame pointed to it, seeming very proud, "This is my special training device, 'thrower'."

Shirou grabbed ahold of the gi wrapped around the statue, which was roughly his own height and just reached Akisame's shoulder, and made to lift it to see how heavy it was. He grunted in effort, barely getting its feet off of the ground. "Whoa! It's heavy!"

Akisame's response was totally deadpan. "That's because it's a lump of rock." He got back into his all business mindset. "For now, we'll set aside the complicated techniques to start you on the basics. Now that your body is conditioned enough, we will begin teaching you how to fight with the fundamentals!"

Shirou grabbed ahold of the belt and front of the gi, and strained to lift the statue in a way that would let him throw it. He gritted his teeth but his efforts got him nowhere, until Akisame tapped his shoulder and had him stop. "Haha, your perseverance and eagerness will serve you well, Shirou, but you must learn how to throw properly first. You need to think about the center of the weight."

Shirou gave him a quizzical look, and Akisame elaborated. "It is also known as the balance of the mass. For a person, it'd be around their belly button." He placed his hand on the head and put his foot at the base of the statue. "Simply said, by placing force on the two ends of the weight center..." The statue spun like a propeller until Akisame tapped it to set it back down upright. "You can easily knock them down!"

"A-amazing!" Shirou was again fully eager to try his hand at it, and settled in to try the throw again. He got a few practice attempts in with Akisame watching carefully, before his sleeve rolled up on one throw. Akisame stepped in with narrowed, once more glowing eyes and grabbed Shirou's hand.

"What is this, Shirou? When did you get a cut like this?" Akisame was particularly stern, glaring Shirou down.

Sheepish, Shirou rubbed the back of his head with his other arm, "Uh...well there were some random thugs on the way home yesterday with knives. I managed to fight them with a stick and I ended up waiting for an ambulance to make sure they were alright."

The glowing eyes increased their radiance. "Really now. And you didn't see fit to inform us of this?"

Shirou looked at him, confused for a second, but his eyes brightened in understanding. "Oh, don't worry. I can deal with this today, its nothing really. I can keep up!"

Akisame raised an eyebrow at him, but nodded and backed off. That wasn't his concern, but he could respect the determination. He eyed the bandage on Shirou's hand with a new intensity instead of the mild curiousity from earlier, but otherwise the training went on as normal.

It wasn't until Shirou's training with Apachai that Akisame renewed his scrutiny.

* * *

"Shirou, ready to go?"

Shirou nodded decisively, "Yes, Sensei."

Apachai smiled happily, eyes closed and hair band on. "I don't know about other fighting styles, but if you need to kill, then it's Muay Thai! Apachai learned it that way..."

"Guh..." Shirou wasn't really sure how to take that, but he nodded anyways. "Okay, Sensei...but I don't really need to kill anyone right now..."

Apachai smiled at him, "That's okay, I'm sure you will have people to kill in the future!"

Shirou gave up on composure and fell back half a step, downright terrified by the mixed messages. A smiling killer? Wasn't this what he had promised to save people from?

Akisame spoke up from the patio, "Hmmm, wouldn't it be better if you taught him what kind of fighting technique Muay Thai is?"

Apachai turned to Akisame and his face went completely innocent, "Huh? It's to kill people and..."

Shirou shook his head slowly at his newest teacher, not really sure whether he should be taking these lessons. But Akisame made up for the half-hearted, or maybe just misinformed, reply. "Ah, Muay Thai is historically a traditional martial art used for close quarters combat, originally developed in the Kingdom of Siam, which is now known as Thailand...or at least I think that's what Apachai is trying to say."

Apachai clenched a fist and nodded excitedly, "Right! Exactly!"

Shirou gave him the stink eye, 'That's not what you were saying at all. I'm getting strange Fuji-nee vibes...' But he had to train, to make the most use of his time so that he could save others. More than that, Shirou knew that some day he may have to kill, just like his Father had told him when he was younger. "Okay, let's start Apachai-sensei."

The giant man jumped up and came down in a stance, "Right! Then first, Tan Garde Muei!" Shirou followed the stance and stood with his hands clenched and held palm forwards in front of himself.

Apachai nodded then swept an elbow forwards, "Next is Ti Sok! Muay Thai uses the elbows and knees a lot!" The two repeated the motion in tandem, Shirou watching Apachai carefully.

Akisame continued lecturing from the patio, keeping watch over the lesson. "Most current martial arts, prohibit the use of knees and elbows during a match..."

As Shirou followed his Master in the steps of Muay Thai, he let his curiosity get the best of him. "Why?"

Apachai answered as enthusiastically as ever. "That's because if you get hit wrong you die!"

Akisame nodded in agreement, still in lecture mode. "True, but, Muay Thai focuses on these two techniques instead."

Shirou frowned, throwing another elbow, "Why?"

Again, Apachai shouted his answer happily, "That's because if you get a good hit in, you can kill him!"

Shirou's frown deepened, then he asked a question that had been plaguing him since he was a child. Or rather, he asked a question that only someone as strong as these Masters could give him an answer too. "So...is this a martial art designed to save, or to kill? Is there a difference?"

He was answered by the Elder when the venerable man walked out from the dojo proper, "Ultimately, no matter what type of martial art it is, the objective is how to efficiently destroy your opponents. After that, it just depends on the heart of the fighter."

Shirou continued the steps, but he listened intently to something that had been especially relevant ever since he saw Miu cartwheeling through the air to save that old man the other day. The Elder continued, "If it is used for your selfish gains, then it becomes 'violence.' But if you use it to protect yourself, to help someone else in need, then even a killing technique can ascend to true martial arts."

Shirou nodded, gaze even more determined than before. He already knew what his path was, and he now knew how he could save others effectively with this training. That had always been his concern, and it always would be.

As he returned his full attention to Apachai, the giant pulled a crazy fast knee, hands behind his head to imitate a hold on an opponents head. "There, the last is Ti Kau Kon! The trick is to not hold back! And with this, any opponent of Shirou will go straight to the afterlife!"

Shirou tried to block out Apachai's encouragements, fairly sure that he would be corrupted by their innocuous influence. He could think of nothing more insidious than the shouts of a 7 foot tall giant with killer knees and elbows.

Akisame watched Shirou practice, satisfied that Ryozanpaku's pupil would succesfully make use of his training instead of going off to fight randomly for the sake of fighting. That eliminated one possibility, though it raised a few others.

After a bunch more repetitions, Apachai stood across from Shirou with punching mitts. "Good, Shirou, you're doing well. That's it for the basic moves. We'll start some mitt hitting now."

Shirou stood in his Muay Thai stance, "Yes!"

Apachai smiled kindly, "Okay, try hitting!"

Shirou nodded and went forward, musing on the lack of 'killing' being mentioned and the return of Apachai's usual innocent demeanor. So far, there wasn't a single shadowed face or glowing eye. Shirou inched forwards, testing the waters. He could distinctly recall the first time Apachai tried to practice 'holding back.' No stone statue deserved to be put through that treatment.

Apachai's eyes blazed and his smile turned into something evil, his face darkening until only the glowing light from the eyes and pearly white gash in place of his mouth showed.

Nope, not going there.

Shirou backed hurriedly out of range. He may be willing to throw his life away for another, but dammit! Even he had a self-preservation instinct, he just overrode it whenever someone else was involved!

Apachai's face lightened and he called eagerly to the nervously retreating Shirou. "What's wrong, Shirou? Hurry up. Mitt hitting is fun!"

Shirou got flashbacks to Fuji-nee and whenever she got ahold of Tora-shinai, and backed up another dozen feet. "Really, can you really take it easy on me?!"

Apachai staggered backwards, clutching his face with the punching mitts. He slumped and turned away to head back into the dojo or find a dark corner to clutch his knees and rock in. "Apachai sad...to not get trusted by my disciple...and I practiced 'taking it easy' so much too..."

Shirou felt bad, really bad. "Ah...wait up..."

"Apachai cannot live anymore!" He knelt on the ground and tried to pick at the grass blades while still wearing the mitts. It was kind of pathetic, really. Shirou's heart lurched. "I have no confidence. Sorry I was born..."

Shirou couldn't take the pain in his heart anymore, and shouted, "Let's do it, the mitt hitting!"

Apachai spun upright and bounced on his toes, excited. Shirou backed away so fast he almost fell over, but the tell-tale signs of Apachai's depression forced Shirou to suck it up and throw a punch.

"See, mitt hitting is really fun!" Apachai's face was no longer shadowed, instead bright and happy.

Shirou threw a second punch and smiled back, happy that Apachai was happy. "You're right!"

Apachai nodded rapidly again, "Now then, dodge from over there."

Shirou got out a "huh?" and then a truck hit him. Well, it was a fist, but it might as well have been a speeding car: it would have been safer for Shirou.

"Hiyaaa Paawwww!" Shirou went spinning away as Apachai roared to the heavens, the full force of his attack meeting Shirou's head.

Somewhere out in the multiverse, a Counter Guardian smiled for no reason he could identify.

Shirou's stitches had snapped open at the hit, and his blood formed a red trail like a spinning firework in the night sky. He came to a halt a dozen meters away, laying flat on his back and emptily gazing up at the sky.

"Huh?" Apachai's momentary lapse of reason was met by a bewildered face.

Then it was met by Sakaki's berating fist. "What do you mean 'Huh'?! You Moron! Are you trying to murder your disciple?!"

Miu ran over from where she was maintaining the dojo. "Shirou! Shirou, get a hold of yourself!"

Ma and Akisame approached from nearby, mildly exasperated. "What, what? Did Apachai finally do it?" Ma glanced between the broken body, trail of blood, and kneeling Apachai.

Akisame sighed, "My my..."

Apachai shook his head in denial, "Apachai took it easy!"

As Akisame walked over to check on the disciple, Miu took Shirou's pulse. All of the blood drained from her face. "Shi-shirou is..."

Akisame chuckled, shaking his head at the dramatics of youth. "Hahaha, why are you overreacting so much? It's not a training method that kills so easily..." He froze as he checked Shirou's pulse.

* * *

"1 2 3!" Akisame pumped Shirou's chest with his hands. "1 2 3!"

Shirou woke up to the mustachioed face of Akisame and a cloudy sky. He reached up with a hand, remembering Kiritsugu and the day of the fire...and Akisame sat back, wiping a hand on his forehead. "See, there! It's nothing, eh?"

Miu clutched her face, wondering what exactly she had invited upon one of her classmates. "Nooo!"

Shirou sat up, looking around. No flames? Almost died? No biggy.

"What happened?"

Akisame and Ma started spouting off things like "Just a bit of overworking!" and "You should really be more careful, training with wounds!"

As Shirou got back up to train again, Akisame paused in trying to reassure the boy that he hadn't almost died by not mentioning that he had almost died. He watched Shirou get led off to stitch up the cuts, to the boy's protest that they were nothing.

He came back not a few minutes later and tried to go right back to training with Apachai, though the other Masters stepped in.

He was treating the pain as both expected and minor...Akisame could only wonder how he would treat the near-death experience if he remembered it, which he didn't seem to.

Akisame filed the incident away for later. Their new Disciple was certainly interesting. His observations were confirmed a few days later when Shirou just shrugged and went back to work when he learned that Akisame was increasing the size of the throwing statues.

* * *

A week later, Shirou ended up in a half-dozen more fights, or chases. He managed to escape from the teenaged gangsters who had taken to just hanging out on his route to and from school simply to catch him for a good fight. It was getting to the point that he was going out of his way to avoid his usual roads. He was fearful that they would start showing up at school looking for him and cause trouble at the front gate. It seemed that someone had started rumors around town that he had declared Miyamachou as his territory and that the gangs in Shinto were all wimps.

When the hell did Fuyuki sprout a bunch of crazy martial arts thugs?

At any rate, Shirou found himself doing things he never really expected. His body, which had previously been at what he thought was the peak physical condition for people easily a year older than himself, had apparently done something ridiculous. Without increasing in size whatsoever, his strength and stamina had easily tripled, maybe even quadrupled. Shirou was incredibly tough, having stood up to random bullies a lot as a kid, having worked out every day since he was little, and now getting trained and regularly hit by the Masters at Ryozanpaku.

So the one time he got cornered and decided to just hold up his arms and take the blows instead of escalating to the level of a knife fight, it felt like nothing compared to what Apachai could do. He got a handful of more bruises atop his usual ones from training, and nothing else. The three gangsters who had ran him down into an alley eventually gave it up as a bad job when Shirou stood for the tenth time.

The summer vacation was fast approaching, and Shirou was looking forward to focusing on his training at Ryozanpaku and not having to head out where he had to escape more roving hunters. It seemed that his Masters were feeling similarly, since they kept showing undue concern for him. It was actually a little more terrifying than their usual blase disregard for his well being. The most terrifying was Akisame, who had never shown any hesitation in placing him into ridiculous situations. Shirou still hated the weight sled with a passion.

It wasn't until he was called into a meeting that he learned the full designs of his Masters.

Akisame stood with his finger held straight up to lecture Shirou, eyes shining with an eerie inner light and an intense face. "It's been decided, my disciple, that you will live a new lifestyle. It's a lifestyle that consists of a disciple and their sensei who devote their entire lives to learning the 'know-how' and techniques of all martial arts. To put it simply, it's a martial arts that needs the devotion of one's life and a life that cannot live without the martial arts." He stood up, his voice rising with enthusiasim and his tone pitched like a prize giver from a game show. "And you've been selected for the lifestyle! You've done it! Amazing!"

Shirou gave him a deadpan look. "So you want me to stay at Ryozanpaku full time?" The assembled Masters nodded in unison, even the normally taciturn Shigure getting in on the act from where she clung to the ceiling beams with her toes. Shirou put his chin in his hand and thought. It would give him the opportunity to take some of the chores in Ryozanpaku off of Miu, and it would also let Sakura and Taiga stop worrying about the house if no one was there. "Okay, I just need to tell my guardian Taiga and one of my friends who likes to come over for breakfast."

The assembled masters gave each other thumbs up, their teeth and eyes glinting, but Shirou ignored the attempt to rile him up. Instead, he grew an aura of gloom. "Oh no...I have to convince Fuji-nee...I'm doomed."

And so, Shirou got beaten over the head by Tora-shinai a dozen times until he promised that he would let her come to Ryozanpaku every day to eat dinner with him.

Somehow, the thought of Taiga with the rest of the insane Masters at Ryozanpaku seemed like a gathering of the perfect storm. Maybe Sakura would come and keep her under control?

* * *

"Shirooouuuu-kuuuuuun~. Hurry up and pass the green beans~." Taiga shot teary eyes at Shirou, slumping at her seat on the table between the Elder and Shigure.

Shirou, meanwhile, fought tooth and nail for his food. "Gaaahh! Why the hell won't you let me get any food, you crazy Masters!" Sakaki took advantage of Shirou's angry rant to dart in and grab his grilled beef. Shirou glared at him and tried to steal something back, but got nothing as Sakaki lifted his plate and balanced it in the air, out of Shirou's reach. As Taiga began to smile evily at the entertainment, Shirou turned his glare to her. "Get them yourself, Fuji-nee. This is ridiculous!" Apachai took advantage of Sakaki's laughter to steal the whole plate, which started another scuffle.

Taiga ended up trying to steal from Shigure and nearly lost her hand to a fork. She sat next to Shirou from then on to, as she insisted, "protect her little brother from the mean martial artists."

* * *

Miu gathered a few of the dishes, but her practiced motions paused when she realized that some of them were missing from the table. Her lips thinned in anger. "If Apachai is stealing things again..."

"Apachai-sensei steals?"

At Shirou's startled question, Miu faced him prepared to go on and on about missing food and vanishing side dishes, but her mouth halted mid-motion and left her gaping. Shirou was standing there, peering around a stack of dishes and looking as if one of the founding principles of his existence had been knocked out from under him. Shirou took her gaping as an answer, strangely, and shook his head sadly. "I always thought Apachai-sensei was a kind person, but to think that he steals." He balanced the stack on one hand and tapped his pointer finger to his cheek. "Then again, that could just be him acting as immature as always. I swear that he and Taiga are alike as peas in a pod. Truthfully, I'm not sure if I fear Tora-shinai or Apachai's fists more."

Miu pointed at him, eyes confused and disbelieving all at the same time. "You're helping me with the dishes!" The shouted statement came off more as an accusation than anything else.

Shirou stopped contemplating the mysteries of dual personalities and turned his head down to face Miu, quirking an eyebrow. "Well, yeah. I feel terrible that I haven't been able to help out around here, and it was already bad enough that I was making Sakura cook me dinner. She was always too kind for her own good. So now that I'm living here, I have to help at least clean up if I'm to busy to help cook."

Miu gaped again, then got a little teary eyed. She turned away and wiped her forearm on her face. "It's so wonderful, to actually have someone help me manage the dojo."

A flash of light came from the floorboards, followed by an indignant voice. "Hey, I'm working hard to build up a new medicine practice here in Fuyuki too!"

Miu stomped on the floor absentmindedly, cracking the boards and eliciting a scuttling sound, as if a giant bug were scurrying under the floorboards. "No pictures, Ma-san."

Shirou scratched his head in confusion but shrugged and went back to clearing the dishes.

* * *

It was incredibly hard to get any privacy, but Shirou was determined to find a place to practice his magecraft. In the end, he chose to visit his house and drag a bunch of the junked electronics and mechanical parts over to his room in the dojo, setting them up and saying that he liked to tinker.

With that, he was able to secure an hour late every night to sit down and build his magic circuit, going through his usual magic training.

He wasn't entirely certain that his Masters weren't observing him somehow, but he figured that so long as he stuck to Structural Grasping and some light Reinforcing he could keep his more esoteric abilities secret.

"Trace on." Today, he wanted to try something new though. Probably the hardest thing about martial arts for him was learning the forms and techniques. Ever since he first started learning to throw from Akisame-sensei, the other Masters had chipped in and taught him various techniques. The lessons from Ma and Sakaki were straightforward enough, usually boiling down to repeating the motions over and over for basic punches, kicks, and stances. It was nice to finally get proper instructing in fighting, since Shirou knew now that he had to learn to fight if he would ever manage to save people like his Father or Miu.

The lessons from Apachai and Shigure, however, were almost always strange, painful, or terrifying: often all three at once. Where Sakaki would give him roundabout advice for facing down different styles and Ma would demonstrate a specific technique for blocking a kick (while managing to somehow work in time to molest Miu), Apachai would try and teach Shirou ways to elbow and knee his opponents then randomly whale on him with a giant, blindingly fast fist that carried more force than a truck on the freeway.

Shirou wasn't sure how he was still alive, but he figured that more than Kiritsugu had saved him the day of that fire, and thanked whatever it was that it had stuck around up to Ryozanpaku.

Shigure's lessons were the most unconventional, either taking the form of teaching him to have a clear head when threatened (Shirou would never look at the apple on the head trick the same again) or sparring with him using a rolled up newspaper. The one time they practiced with spoons, Shirou ended up bleeding out on the ground with Apachai once again holding his limp form as if he was a poor, dying woodland creature. At least that time it wasn't Apachai's fault.

But that wasn't the problem. The problem was that he kept making mistakes. Whether it was in the way he moved when he punched, the way he stood when he blocked, or the placement of his feet when he dodged, Shirou made little progress. In short, he had no talent for learning whatsoever, despite his own practice over the years when it came to some simple fighting techniques and general fitness.

Add on that the constant training was wearing on him still, especially with the necessity to practice magecraft and his renewed determination to help Miu take care of the property, and Shirou had nearly sheered his nose off on the grindstone he was using. He was being forced to turn down the requests of others at school, even. But though his progress was slow, it was all so that he could save more people in the future.

For that, he would do anything.

To his mind, it was fairly simple. He could only save those he chose to save, and he was choosing to save all of those in the future who would truly need his help rather than the few who needed his help with smaller problems in the now.

And then, there was the madness of the random fighting. Shirou was incredibly glad that he had chosen to live at Ryozanpaku, because he would have otherwise been forced to beat up random thugs for no reason at all and far more often.

A really annoying fight came when he happened to accompany Miu on a shopping trip. A small gang came after them, and Shirou fell straight into a heedless rush for the enemy, striking out with fists and knees that rendered the trio of clueless idiots senseless before Miu could do more than realize that someone was threatening them.

After that, Shirou volunteered to take care of all of the shopping trips himself. He couldn't stand it if Miu was hurt by the people after him. Not that they were a threat.

It was kinda embarrassing to be chased for no reason.

Anyways, Shirou had had a very busy time recently, and it was getting hard to center his thoughts when he was actually a little excited to try something new. Stupid Shirou, focus!

The circuit burned, growing slowly down his back like molten lead or a fiery root. Breathing deeply, Shirou kept his entire being concentrated, and finished building the circuit. Releasing another gust of air, Shirou opened his eyes and stood up. Grunting from the sore muscles of the day of training (who trained using firepits these days? Really?), Shirou settled into one of the Karate stances that Sakaki-sensei had showed him.

Again centering his breath, he murmured his personal aria for all of the spells that he knew. "Trace. On."

Glancing down at his feet, he saw a ghost of the stance, an intimate knowledge of the position of every part of his body appearing like a wireframe model in his mind. Remembering the experiment he had performed earlier, Shirou did his best to recall what he had seen of Sakaki-sensei's demonstration when he had performed a quiet Structural Grasping on him.

Shirou had been completely uncertain whether or not it would work, but apparently he had been right in his idea.

Structural Grasping was a method of taking in the shape and form of a material object, usually machinery or tools. Shirou had really only gotten practice with the electronics and pipes in his workshop at home, but a few times he had done it to himself to practice for when he tried reinforcing his own body. He was in no way truly ready to do that, lest he burst his own limbs, but he had experimented just to see.

Here, though, the human body was being treated just like a machine. Shirou was being pushed through the motions until he reached peak efficiency.

So his skill with Structural Grasping would help him to perfect his stances by imprinting what he had to do in his mind far more clearly than merely watching. The only problem was doing it without alerting anybody, but for now he would be happy with simply correcting his own stances. Not even his lack of instinctual body placement would impede his progress. Shirou wouldn't let it.

So he shifted his foot a few inches to the side, matching it up with the way that Sakaki had stood earlier.

He could do this. He would work and work and work until he was strong enough to save everybody, because that was his only path in life. The path of a savior.

* * *

Takeda pushed back a few strands of his silvery hair and cracked his neck, left hand stuffed into his pocket and travel bag slung over his shoulder. Tall, well groomed, dark skinned, and muscled: Takeda was the envy of half the male population at the station. Glancing at the hot sun in the sky, he heaved a gusty sigh. "Really, that Kisara, sending us out to some town way off just to scout for a good fight. She's battle mad." He turned around and grinned at his big, judo using friend. "Know what I mean, Ukita."

Ukita chuckled and smirked back tauntingly. "Admit it Takeda, you just don't want to be out in the summer heat. Cramps your style, right?"

"Tch." Takeda quirked his lips but otherwise turned back to the streets of Shinto. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

As Takeda faced the city, a random street vendor wearing a smock with a medely of fruits on it got up in his face and started waving around fresh fruit like they were the holy grail. "A freshly delivered pineapple for you, my street-wise friend? What about an orange! Everyone knows orange juice is the breakfast of champions! Do you think Rocky got by without a proper meal every morning?"

Takeda smiled at the enthusiastic and spindly merchant, but shook his head. "Sorry, no. I'm on a budget for this trip." Hitching his bag up, he started walking in a random direction. "Now, let's go find us some brawny idiots to interrogate. C'mon, Koga."

Koga, much smaller than the other two, scowled but walked alongside them. "I told you to stop treating me like a freakin kid."

* * *

A/N: Okay! So, I've been putting this story down and refining the world around it since January, and I finally decided to get it put up online for now. I've hit a bit of a block and need help with motivation, as it were. Suffice it to say, though, this entire story has already been lined out in vague details, and the final approach and a lot of the later characters have been birthed fully formed onto paper. Of course, I have to reach these plots and characters first, but I believe I can do it.

The biggest thing about this story, to me, is that it only loosely follows the storylines of either. I basically sprint off into the wilderness rather than directly follow the plot of Kenichi, though I do plan to have a few of the major arcs and certainly the same people. As for fate/stay night, I will have Shirou participating in the Holy Grail War. The biggest problem with that, of course, is trying to balance the Masters against the heroes of the Grail War.

Not an easy thing to do. At any rate, I do have ideas for all of this I just need to reach it. And it will take a long, long, loooong time before I can have the Grail War happening in Fuyuki. If measured in-universe, we're talking roughly two years. The timeline I have is rough but serviceable, and basically has Shirou getting injured around a month or two into high school, then leaving the archery club and joining Ryozanpaku a month or so after that. This gives him a little under 2 years to train, then he gets his baptism by fire.

I also have fit Martial Arts into Nasu's verse, though any theories that anyone has on how that should work would be awesome and greatly help me iron out details. As for having Martial Arts organizations running around the world with money and influence...I've basically just had them stay in the East, where the Clocktower and other traditional magi ignore them and consider them nothing more than brutes.

Read, have fun, I know I am.


	2. Blood on the Leaves

"Hyap!"

"Guh!"

"Chah!"

Shirou grunted, taking the full force of one of Miu's kicks. He really couldn't get a hit in on her, no matter how hard he tried. He swung around, trying to keep track of Miu as she darted over him with her signature leaps. A leg came in from above, and Shirou barely took the blow with his palm. He tried to grab, but she had already completed her spin and settled into another stance before him.

Master Ma stood to the side and watched the match to give Shirou advice, even while going through his own katas. "What's the matter, Shirou? You have to attack more!"

Shirou tried to block a straight heel palm strike, but took the blow to the side of his head instead and got rattled. "I-I'm trying, but there's just no opening..."

Ma huffed in exasperation, straightening his hat in a practiced motion. "No opening? Look at your opponent a little closer."

Shirou nodded as he got his bearings back, a few blows from Miu pounding against his defensive blocks. Miu spoke up as well, "What're you doing?! If you don't attack, you'll never win!"

Without warning, her knee came lancing forward, and Shirou was forced to cross his arms and take the blow. _If only I knew where she was going to attack from!_

As Miu rebounded from the attack, Shirou took his only chance and struck forwards. Miu spun aside, forcing his arm away as he struck, but as she blocked, her elbow raised and left a wide open spot on her side that Shirou could aim for.

He glanced at it, realizing what it meant. _If I can strike there, then she'll take the hit..._

He pulled back his extended fist, getting ready for another jab straight to the opening, _So that's a blind spot._

But even as he struck forwards, Miu brought up her forward leg and kicked him straight in the chin, knocking him back and negating the attack.

Ma sighed, hand on his hat, as Shirou tried to regain his equilibrium. "What're you doing?! Miu went through all of that effort to purposely make a blind spot!"

Shirou gaped at Miu, who gasped at being outed. As Shirou thought, _It was on purpose?_ Miu thought, _Why did you have to say that!_

Shirou got a shrewd look in his eyes an instant later. "You made that opening on purpose? So you knew I would go for it..."

Miu cocked an eyebrow in confusion but nodded slowly. Ma reacted similarly, "What are you thinking about, Shirou?"

Shirou was too deep in thought to answer, so he got a knock to the head from Ma.

* * *

Sakura followed Taiga through the open gate of Ryozanpaku. She glanced around, trying to find Shirou, but all she saw was a few training dummies in the front yard of the dojo. Taiga snagged her hand and tugged Sakura towards the dojo, "Come on, Sakura-chan! Shirou is in here!"

"O-okay Fujimura-sensei."

The two found Shirou in the dojo, getting trained by Akisame. Trained, however, was the operative word. The descriptive word, words, would be "beat to hell."

Sakura gasped as she watched Shirou cartwheel through the air from a throw. "Sempai!" She ran over to check on him, but Akisame held out a hand to stop her. Unusually forceful, Sakura turned a narrow eyed glare at him, "What are you doing to Shirou!"

Akisame shook his head at her and pointed to Shirou, who stood up from the ground and got back into a stance, ready to go. He didn't even seem to notice Sakura standing there, all of his attention focused on Akisame. Sakura backed off, ushered gently away by Kensei, who stood nearby. Quietly, she watched as Shirou got up again and again, facing his Master down and learning whatever he possibly could despite the numerous bruises and sore muscles that piled up under the haze of endless exertion.

A small smile grew on Sakura's lips, a nostalgic and faintly proud smile. After Shirou staggered off to do some more training with Ma, Sakura walked up to Akisame and bowed. "Please take good care of Shirou-sempai, he has a bad habit of pushing himself too far."

Akisame smiled at her. "I will be sure to do that. Are you going to be visiting him often?"

Sakura straightened and smiled back, "Yes, I plan to come by and help with dinner. Sempai was teaching me how to cook while he was injured, and I want to repay him by helping out here, too."

* * *

Takeda leaned down, placing his hand on the 17 year old's shoulder. He smiled. "So, are you going to tell us about this 'Shirou Emiya' or will Ukita have to throw you at the wall again?"

Shaking, the teen's eyes darted to his friend, unconscious on the ground next to the brick wall Ukita had bounced the two of them off of: he blurted his answer at the sight. "He's just some kid in Miyamachou whose been talking big. Apparently he hospitalized a bunch of boys from my gang and then disappeared. A few groups tried going after him again but most can't do anything to him and just give up."

Standing, Takeda sighed. "That really isn't enough." He patted the jacketed shoulder of the terrified teen, "But that's alright.". He gave the shaking teen a kindly smile. "You should really act a little tougher if you want to run around on the streets."

"Hey," a voice interrupted, "you said you're looking for Shirou Emiya?"

Takeda turned at the name, eyeing the purple-haired rich kid who stood at the other end of the alley. Ukita stepped forward aggressively, prompting Takeda to roll his eyes at the big teen's response. "What's it to ya?"

A smirk, all charming with just a hint of disdain, "Nothing, I just saw your fight and figured I might help you so you don't cause any problems for me. My name's Shinji, and if you want to find Shirou Emiya you just have to follow me."

Takeda broke out laughing, doubling over when Shinji gritted his teeth. He couldn't believe some rich punk was trying to play him, it was hilarious how trasparent he was. Wiping his eyes, Takeda straightened and shook his head. "Alright then, kid, we'll follow you."

* * *

The weights on his legs dragged on the ground as Shirou made to get back to the dojo. The massive pack and bags he carried must have weighed fifty or seventy pounds, but Shirou had gotten so used to the pack that only the shackles affected him anymore. That and the stares, he didn't think he would ever get over the stares.

So when three new thugs walked out of an alley in front of him, Shirou just sighed and reached down, dropping the packs and unclasping the iron chains. As he unlimbered himself, Shirou spoke casually. "So I take it you three want to fight me or something stupid like that?"

One of them, just a bit taller than Shirou himself and standing at the front, chuckled. "Well aren't you the confident one."

Shaking his head, Shirou finished standing and stretched his back a little. "Not confident, I'm just getting used to it."

The front one stepped forward and smiled, "Is that so, Shirou Emiya? My name is Takeda the Fist, would you like to fight?"

Shirou got into a guard stance, "Not really, but you guys never take a 'no' very well."

"Hahaha! I like you, Shirou!" Takeda got into his own stance, left hand still in his pocket and right held up ready to punch, "Tell you what, for being such a good sport, I'll fight you only with my right fist."

Shirou shrugged, "No difference to me."

Takeda smirked, and lunged. Shirou watched him come in, surprised at the speed. Not a single one of the thugs from before had managed anything like that. The punch lanced out, and Shirou reacted, but even as he blocked that first strike, the fist darted out and in before he could set up for his own strike, blowing past his parted guard and hitting him right in the chin.

Shirou staggered backwards, shaking his head slightly, but Takeda didn't let up. Another hit got Shirou in the gut, thanks to his reflexively raised guard, and a second and third got him in the face again when he tried to get space. Shirou fell to the ground, a little dazed.

Takeda shook his fist, blowing on it. "Whoo! What the hell are you made of!?" He got back into his stance, shooting a grin at Shirou. "Your guard is good, but you don't seem to be able to handle a fast jab, kid."

Shirou stood up and got back into his own stance. "Crazy!" he muttered. _His punch is way faster than mine._

Takeda narrowed his eyes, "But what the heck is this. You aren't even trying." He darted forwards, fist again lancing out, and Shirou met it with a crossed guard. Takeda lunged in for a low punch, but forewarned Shirou pushed it away and stood firm. The boxer backed up, glaring. "What the hell was that, you had a perfect opening!"

Shirou shrugged, getting back into his stance. "I don't really have any reason to fight you. To be honest, I'm just waiting for you to leave."

Takeda growled at him, "What kind of shit is that? I thought you were a cool guy, but instead you're a worthless pansy." He darted in again and began to hammer away. First one jab, then another, then another and another. Shirou blocked most of them, weathering the blows with solid arms or quick deflections, until Takeda got him to lower his guard just a bit to much and hammered forwards with a hook, slamming into Shirou's jaw and sending him tumbling down.

Takeda took a breath and glared down at Shirou one more time. "Che!" He spit at the sidewalk between Shirou's legs. "Won't even defend himself properly." He turned around to walk away, "Let's go guys, this is pointless."

Shirou stood up slowly and nursed his jaw with a palm. That last punch had really taken it out of him, which was a surprise because he regularly got hit by Apachai. Shrugging, he leaned down to grab the bags and continue on his route home, happy that the food was untouched and more would-be fighters had given up on chasing him around.

* * *

Takeda brushed past Shinji, ignoring the freshman. So far, he hadn't found anything interesting here. It was kind of sad, really, since Ragnarok had basically beat down all resistance in their area. There was no real challenge for them. The kid, Shirou, who was already there could have been a good fight, but he had no fire, no will for battle. It was pathetic, really. It would have been smarter to just run away, but the fool stood there for no reason whatsoever. Takeda gritted his teeth, remembering the way the kid's eyes had just watched his punches, uncaring of the blows as if they meant nothing to him. It was maddening, to be dismissed like that.

"Hey, listen to me dammit! Do you want to get a proper fight out of Emiya or not!?"

Takeda started, and whirled around. He grabbed Shinji by the lapels and stared him dead in the eyes. "What? You know a way to make him fight!"

Shinji grew a superior smirk and brushed Takeda's hand away. Takeda reluctantly let go as Shinji stepped back and brushed himself off. "Well, if you really want to know, then you'll just have to repay me for the disrespect."

Takeda growled and leaned forwards, "Look, kid, I really don't care who you think you are. Just tell me what I want to know and I'll walk away without hurting you."

Shinji scowled at him, but he relented a few moments later. "Bah! Look, if you want Emiya to actually fight back, you have to give him something to fight for."

Takeda raised an eyebrow, "So what is he, some kind of defender of justice?"

Shinji laughed, a cruel laugh. "Hahahah! Got it in one. If you want the best results, I can get you a good hostage. Come back in a few weeks, I'll have it all set up then."

Takeda looked away, annoyed, but finally nodded. "Fine."

* * *

Having run into each other, Sakura and Shirou walked into Ryozanpaku together. Sakura was silently impressed that he managed to push open the doors and carry the oversized pack and weights without any more visible strain than a gritting of his teeth and digging of his heels. She had managed to work up the courage to show up for dinner right now, but she wanted to come for breakfast as well. Last time, she'd left almost as soon as she saw the girl working in the kitchen.

If she wasn't careful, that blond milk cow would steal him away.

Sakura forced the thought away.

She would help out in the kitchen, to repay Shirou. That was the only reason she was here.

A loud yell of "Where's my disciple!" came from behind the dojo and broke her from her thoughts. Shirou rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, giving Sakura an apologetic smile. "Sorry Sakura, but Sakaki-sensei is calling for me."

Sakura forced out a light laugh, "Go on Sempai. I'll explore until it's time to make dinner."

Shirou ran off, waving. Sakura watched him go, wondering at just what drove him to work as hard as he did. She remembered one particular work out she saw him doing that involved flames and a pull up bar. Sakura still couldn't figure out what made Shirou subject himself willingly to training that doubled as torture.

"Hi! My name is Apachai!"

Sakura turned and sort of smiled at the giant standing not a foot away with one hand raised in the air. "Um, hi." She bowed formally, as she had been taught, "My name is Sakura Matou."

Apachai looked at her while she maintained her bow, then he scratched his head and looked a little confused. "Those kids are pretty mean, they won't even listen to Apachai."

Sakura stood up straight and looked at him in confusion, her head cocked to the side. Apachai suddenly crouched and leaned in to get right up next to her, peering intensely at her chest. All Sakura could do was freeze and control her heart rate. The crest worms, implanted so long ago by her grandfather and her lifelong bane, shifted inside her suddenly, a ripple through her body. While Sakura jerked involuntarily, Apachai nodded and stood up to beam a smile at her. "Those kids agreed that they wouldn't hurt you so much anymore."

If Sakura had been panicked before, now her heart pounded like a jackhammer. In her panic, she could only stare wide eyed at the smiling giant and it took a while to register what he had said. She paused, her heart skipping a beat, and then gaped at him. "Y-you...the worms didn't-What?"

An othello board popped up out of nowhere, held in Apachai's hand. "Do you want to play othello now?"

Sakura's mouth dropped even further, and she gave the only answer her scrambled brain could come up with. "Sure?"

Another voice came from Sakura's other side, "Can I...watch?"

Sakura turned around to see a woman standing there with a sword strapped to her back. But that wasn't the first thing she saw; the first thing Sakura saw was the woman's nearly expressionless face and empty eyes. Sakura wasn't sure why, but instead of being jealous that Shirou was hanging out with such a beautiful woman, she smiled hesitantly at Shigure, finally getting a handle on the situation. "Of course."

* * *

"Now what is our disciple doing coming back so beaten up?"

Shirou whirled, coming out of his jog around the dojo and into a stance. Then he realized what he was doing and bowed his head, laughing nervously. "Ahaha, sorry Ma-sensei. I just seem to need to get into a stance at every sound nowadays."

Ma jumped down from the rafters, rebounded off of Shirou's head, and sat against the wall, patting the ground. "Come, sit with me for a second Shirou."

Shirou rubbed his aching skull and sighed, coming over to sit next to Ma.

The two sat in silence for a second, to the background noise of an increasingly irate Sakaki, until Ma spoke up. "So tell me, my disciple, why you do not defend yourself."

Shirou looked down at the ground and picked at the floor sheepishly, not sure what he had been doing wrong but fairly sure that he was being reprimanded. "Do you mean when I was attacked on the street earlier?"

At Ma's nod, Shirou sat silent for a second to order his thoughts. "Well, I have no reason to fight them. It's more like I would rather run than fight them, since if I did people would just get hurt as the battle escalated. The first time any of those idiots showed up I beat them soundly, but they pulled knives and I was forced to send three to the hospital."

Pausing, Shirou struggled to articulate the idea behind his actions. Shaking his head in slight frustration, he continued "It's not that I wouldn't fight them...I want to learn martial arts to save people," he turned to Ma and raised both hands as if to encompass something, "and if I attack them I will be going against my beliefs and just causing unnecessary danger." Shirou grabbed his nose and rubbed it between his forefingers. Closing his eyes tightly, he blew out his exasperation.

A few seconds later he resumed slowly, "I really want to stop them by fighting back," he paused and looked at his Master, who watched him from under his hat, "But I want to be a hero like you guys, not some thug who fights anyone that annoys him even if it is their fault. And really, compared to Apachai-sensei their attacks are nothing."

Ma grew a little gloomy at that, mumbling, "...his enemies hurt him less than we do..." but he eventually sat back and sighed. He turned to face Shirou, one eye wide and shining through his bushy brows and the shadow cast by his hat. "Tell me, Shirou. How can you save people if you yourself are to hurt to help?"

Shirou cocked his head and looked at the sky, then turned back to Ma. "Um...I can't?"

Ma nodded, then patted him on the head and stood. "Exactly. So, Shirou, you should use your fists to defend yourself instead of waiting for the aggressor to go away. This way you can go save people the next day without fail. You never know when one of them might go to far even though you consider them a nuisance."

Shirou leaned against the wall as he too stood, grunting just a bit. "Okay, Ma-sensei. I'll make sure that your training doesn't go to waste."

Ma raised his other eyebrow and watched Shirou run off to get put through the ringer for making Sakaki wait. He shook his head and released a puff of air. "He's a good kid. Stupid, but good."

* * *

Shirou rubbed the bags under his eyes, rolling under a bush in the forest behind Ryozanpaku. He glanced around the heavy undergrowth, attempting to peer through the tangled vines and intertwined branches, but he couldn't see more than a dozen feet to any side. Failing that, he tried to listen, hoping that sound would give him some indication of where the hunter was.

Being stalked by Shigure was like having Death itself after you; it came from nowhere without warning and without hesitation. The Masters had apparently decided that his singular talent of archery had to be made use of, so a day had been given over to Shigure so that she could train him in archery.

To be honest, Shirou had been excited to get some training in archery from a proper weapons master, not to mention that it had always been relaxing.

Well, Ma's favorite phrase had become "Stupid Shirou" for a reason. He really should have expected the archery training to be as hellish as the rest. First, he'd been given some ridiculous bow that had been impossible to draw, even for his increased strength, and even worse there had been a small fire pot hanging down from the top of the bow, which forced him to pull back and release the bow string slowly or risk burning his fingers by upsetting it. After a thousand repititions of that, Shigure had made him fire a bow at targets in the trees for an hour, until she was satisfied that his accuracy was sufficiently improved for the day and that his blisters, which were in fact under the calluses he had developed from normal archery, would not hinder the next training exercise.

And now here he was, being hunted while hunting in turn. He had to survive in a forest straight from Vietnam while being chased down by Shigure, who would pop up whenever his attention wavered and hit him with various pointy objects.

Speaking of which, wasn't it a little to quiet? It was summer, so there should be birds and squirrels and other cute little furry creatures running about...

"Waaah!" Shirou jumped from the bush, narrowly avoiding three arrows that had somehow come right on each other's fletching. He landed next to a tree, and when he glanced at his feet he watched with despairing eyes as a tripline snapped backwards. Rather than try and identify whatever doom he faced, Shirou made another leap for a tree, but as he scrambled upwards he noticed the branch above was covered in sharp thorns, and the trunk of the tree had a big 'X' right where he clung to it.

He jumped backwards and upwards, hoping to avoid his next death, and a log slammed into the tree and cracked it in half.

Shirou landed on the ground and began to run, knowing that he had to keep moving or face more pointy death from the terrifying Weapons Mistress of Ryozanpaku.

Why him?

Tired, beat up, a few sharpened sticks protruding from his back, and covered in scratches, Shirou stumbled on through the forest after hours of attempting to find his way out. He really couldn't get past all of the traps here. Shigure had shown up at least a dozen times in the first hour, and Shirou had even gotten a single arrow off at her before she dissappeared into the foliage of the trees. The last time she appeared, she pinned him to a tree with four arrows and told him that he had to make it through the entire forest by the end of the day, or he would be getting double the physical training the next.

That was more than enough motivation for Shirou to struggle on.

The thing was, he kept noticing his Masters just relaxing in the forest. He even ran across Apachai digging a giant hole next to a hotspring that the Elder and Sakaki were bathing in. He didn't even want to think about how to explain that to a normal person.

He was honestly beginning to wonder if there wasn't some form of magecraft involved in the sheer wierdness and impossibility of this place. At least he could be sure that he wouldn't ever be flustered by an obscure spell or monstrous creature, since nothing could compare to his Masters. Although...maybe there was some sort of boundary field set up on the forest, because he could swear the wasn't this much space behind Ryozanpaku.

At any rate, Shirou had just waved at or ignored his Masters and continued on, wondering how exactly they just walked through the trapped forest like that.

Maybe he was acting like a minesweeper and clearing it out for them? Wasn't that a depressing thought.

It wasn't until Akisame stepped out from a tree in front of Shirou that he decided to stop and take a quick break. It was either that, or try and get past Akisame when his primary teacher was obviously in lecture mode. "Shirou, can you tell me what it is that you are doing wrong?"

Shirou panted, trying to catch his breath from his zig-zagging mad dash for survival, and shook his head. "N...no. I don't know...Ha ha...what I'm doing wrong."

Akisame sighed and walked up to Shirou, getting into his patented lecture stance with one finger raised and his upright arm's elbow supported by his other hand. "Shirou, you have a ready resource here at Ryozanpaku. As your Masters, it is our duty to correct your mistakes, but as our Disciple, it is your duty to recognize when you need help and come to us to ask for it. Simply bulling on through your problems yourself is certainly a necessity at times, but you must also learn to temper that attitude with a willingness to learn."

Akisame sighed again when Shirou simply continued panting and cocked his head in confusion. "Shirou. We are your teachers, and it is perfectly okay for you to come ask us for advice whenever you have a problem that you cannot solve."

Shirou stood up and leaned against a tree, trying to figure out what his Master was saying. "But isn't that what you are doing? I'm coming here to get stronger, and you guys are teaching me so that I can."

Shaking his head, Akisame got back into his lecture stance. "Shirou, there is a difference between being strong enough to overcome an obstacle, and actually overcoming it. Sometimes, you will try as hard as you possibly can, but because you are putting your effort into the wrong method or the wrong path, you will never get anywhere no matter how hard you struggle."

At that, Shirou nodded. He could understand that. "So then, are you telling me that I have to do things a certain way if I want to accomplish my goals?"

"No, Shirou." Akisame thought for a bit before going on. "It is not that there is a certain correct way, it is more akin to there being more efficient ways. Some ways of walking through this forest are easier than others, while yet others are far harder but contain fewer potentially lethal traps." Shirou gave him a flat stare at that, recalling a few spiked logs that not even a body trained by these insane Masters could survive. "There are many ways to go about defeating an opponent or, just as in this case, surviving a trapped forest, and it is your job to find out the quickest way. However, because you currently don't know how, you need to take the opportunity to ask those more experienced than yourself so that you can learn."

Shirou nodded slowly, holding his chin and looking a little wise. A blunt shuriken came out of the trees to whack Shirou on the head. "Don't try...and look cool." Shigure leapt down from the trees overhead and stepped up to Shirou, her eyes glinting. "I don't remember...seeing you walk out of the forest."

Shirou backed up, waving his hands. "W-w-wait Kousaka-sensei! Koetsuji-sensei was just giving me a lecture, and I'll be going right now so no more weapons!."

Akisame joined Shigure, his eyes projecting a beam of yellow light as he glared Shirou down. "A lecture, hmmm? Is that how you see this?"

Shirou tumbled over a log and scrabbled for a handhold to pull himself along the ground and away from his angry Masters. "I meant lesson! Lesson!"

He stood up and started sprinting haphazardly through the forest, trying to escape and dodging falling boulders and net traps all the while.

Akisame shook his head slowly. "And he still didn't learn his lesson. Well then, I guess we have much work to do...say Shigure?" Shigure turned to face him, eyebrow raised a millimeter in question and bow back in her hands. "What do you think of a trip to the beach?" An almost imperceptible raising of the lips was his only answer, then Shigure sprang back into the trees to chase Shirou down.

"To Horinji Island." The calm and stern expression, with just a hint of a smile, was somehow distinctly terrifying. But Akisame would never admit to that.

* * *

Sakura stood in the entryway of the kitchen, unsure how to proceed. Now that it came down to it, she had no idea how a person was supposed to go about offering to help with dinner in another person's home. Her eyes darted around the room, alighting on the various, well-maintained if cheap looking, cooking implements and signs of use, too nervous to stay on one thing for too long.

As she moved to take a step over the threshold, a bright voice chirped out behind her, "Oh, hello! You must be Sakura, Shirou's friend!"

Startled, Sakura whipped around while simultaneously jumping forward in fright, resulting in an awkward half turn-half tumble that ends with her on the floor, staring upwards at the girl she had both dreaded and wished to meet.

All fine blond hair and kind blue eyes, Miu knelt down in dismay, reaching out instinctively to help Sakura up, "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to surprise you. Are you alright?"

Not really noticing the sharp pain that accompanied her tail bone meeting the wooden floor, Sakura looked down at the ground between her legs shyly and stammered out a reply, "N-no, I'm fine. It was my fault f-for being clumsy." Her head spun in circles as she tried to shut down the surge of anger she had felt.

Miu gripped Sakura's hand and helped her to stand, all while apologizing. "I really do apologize for startling you. Is there anything I can get you? Maybe some tea?"

"Um...actually," started Sakura, pausing gather herself. "I was...wondering if I could...maybe sometimes, if you needed it...because you're helping Sempai" Her words were halting, unsure, but Miu was surprisingly patient. Taking a quick breath, Sakura belted out her question, "Can I help cook dinner?"

Miu blinked, then smiled enthusiastically, "That would be so fun! Of course you can help me with dinner." For a moment she went off into her own world, eyes sparkling, "Oh, it'll be just like having a little sister, and I can teach you everything I know and we can gossip about boys and trade tips and have food fights!"

Before she knew it Sakura was in an apron and feeling...confused. Miu was a ball of joyous energy. She talked about everything from school to clothes and was constantly showing Sakura new methods of cooking. The meal was complex, more complex than even most of what Shirou would make. Put it simply, Shirou only had to cook for three people, where Miu had eight, now ten mouths to feed.

Where Shirou always put maximum effort and resources into a handful of dishes, Miu cooked a wider variety, with an emphasis on time and money saving techniques. She never bought sauces, instead she made them from scratch. Her ingredients were only as good as Shirou's because she was an expert at haggling (and the shopkeepers took pity on Shirou), despite the amount of food she had to buy. Her supplies were limited, but her ability to mix and match was amazing.

And Miu seemed to love passing her knowledge on to Sakura. Just like Shirou had.

Sakura listened, and answered quietly, and worked, and learned, and was confused.

* * *

Taiga stood on the front rail of the Red Stone Rabbit Mark 2, pointing imperiously towards the horizon. "Helmsman, Full Steam Ahead!"

Apachai jumped up next to her and copied her stance, "Apa!"

Shigure fingered her bow and eyed the seagulls flying overhead, wondering if they would taste good.

Ma scooted up next to the railing, camera in hand, and tried to get a good look under Shigure's bathing suit while she was distracted, but got a sandal to the face for his effort.

The camera went off anyways.

As Ma got chased around the ship and Shigure liberally decorated the wood with arrows, Akisame walked up to where Taiga was attempting to get Apachai to stop copying her and spoke up. "Ah, Fujimura-san."

Taiga spun around and cocked her head at him, taking a moment to glare at Apachai when he did the same. Akisame ignored the byplay and spoke up. "Fujimura-san, I'm afraid that I must ask a favor of you so that we may train Shirou properly."

Taiga faced him seriously for a half a moment then stepped back and threw out her arm, thumb held high and one eye winking at Akisame. "Say it and I'll help! Anything for my cute little Shirou!"

Down below, Shirou labored on in the darkness, struggling mightily to keep the ship moving through the sea. Like the rowing decks of old pirate ships, like the slave holds of the infamous Middle Passage, the dank underbelly of the Red Stone Rabbit Mark 2 was a place of torture and inhumanity.

"What's going on, engine boy? Do you think we're going to get there sometime today going like this?"

Shirou tried to glare at Akisame in response, but he could only manage a second before he had to put his head down and struggle on. Honestly, he didn't mind doing this, but did they have to make the place so damn humid? And why did it smell like raw sewage? What the hell had happened here?

Sakaki walked into the engine room and held a hand to his nose, "What crawled in here and died?"

Akisame waved a hand, "The Elder found a bear hibernating here for the winter. We almost had a repeat of the Mark 1."

"Ah. So he would have totalled the ship?" Sakaki nodded sagely, then scowled at the air around himself. He got into a stance and settled low. "Damned if it isn't smelly in here. Let me take care of it." He punched the air, and the pressure from his blow formed a vacuum that sucked the stale and fetid air right out the door to the top of the ship. A handful of seagulls overhead froze and fell to the sea as the smelly air washed over them, saving their lives from the arrows shot by Shigure.

Shirou glared at Sakaki, "You could have done that at any time!?"

* * *

They finally arrived at the island around mid-morning. After they had put the camping supplies in a log cabin built by the Masters near the center, they headed down to the beach for some free time. Miu was the first to run down the white sands, splashing into the ocean and cartwheeling over a wave. Wearing nothing but her revealing bathing suit, she waved to Shirou. "Come on, Shirou! It's warm!"

Shirou felt a nosebleed coming on and turned quickly away, whispering furiously to himself. "Bad Shirou! Bad!"

Ma sidled up next to him, chuckling evily. "Ho ho ho ho ho! So you have finally discovered the dark power of echi! Yes, now you are truly ready to be my Disciple, Shirou!"

Taiga pounced on Shirou as he tried to back away from the glowy eyed Ma. "Don't try and resist, Shirou-kun! You are a growing boy, and you must quickly choose! Today we will evaluate Miu!"

Shirou dropped to his knee to break the hold and sprinted down the beach to escape. "I have no idea what you two are talking aboooouuuttt!"

His escape didn't last long, though his captors had plans other than humiliation: pain, exhaustion, _and_ humiliation through training.

* * *

Shirou, Taiga, Miu, and Apachai sat around a bonfire on the beach, gathered around the circle of light alone in the dark of the night. Shirou, as usual, was dead tired from training with his Masters, but as soon as Miu had tried to get him to sit down and relax instead of cooking, he had turned into some sort of animal and started defending the fire with all of his might. Strangely, he actually beat Miu off despite her usual victories in the spars and went right back to humming as he turned fish over the fire. Taiga started laughing and told Miu that Shirou needed stress relief.

"Shirou-kun, I think I have a good idea for you." Shirou turned to Taiga, who pointed at Miu, "You should get your stress relief from Miu!"

Shirou fell backwards, poleaxed by the blunt comment and forgetting, momentarily, about the food while Miu tried to guess exactly what Taiga was talking about. Apachai cocked his head in curiousity, "Apachai wants to know how Shirou would get stress relief from Miu? By sparring?"

Taiga cackled, "Oh no! There is a much better way for a man and a wo-Gah!" Shirou struggled with Taiga, shoving a bowl of rice and fish into her face.

"I thought you loved my cooking Fuji-nee!" He roared. Taiga tried to grab a branch to whack him with, but Shirou kicked any debris away and grabbed a bottle of water from nearby. He began to force the water down her throat as well. "You should be careful to wash that food down! You might choke!"

Miu looked rather aghast at Shirou acting so violently with his surrogate sister, and Apachai laughed at the entertainment. "I like seeing Shirou act out! Shirou is always to serious."

Taiga managed to get ahold of a branch and set about beating Shirou over the head. She swung as fast and as hard as she could, using all of the skill that made her the Tiger of Fuyuki, but Shirou blocked all of her attacks. After a few minutes of furious battle, she paused, wiping her arm on her forehead. "Fuu...you really have gotten strong Shirou." She stood back and put her hand on her hip, cocking her head at him and smiling. "So stupid, Shirou-kun, always chasing after your Father and trying to do everything by yourself. I guess this really has been a good thing for you."

Shirou lowered his arms, which had been waiting for a surprise attack, and smiled back. "Don't worry Fuji-nee, I'll make sure to always stay in contact with you."

*Thwack!* "Ha! You lowered your guard!" Taiga danced away, waving her branch in victory as Shirou rubbed the side of his head. She whipped around and pointed her branch sword at Shirou. "Don't think you're so grown up that you can do anything without your big sister there to guide you, Shirou-kun!"

Shirou stopped rubbing his head, pausing in his grumbling (like a child I swear...), and his smile returned. He really couldn't think of what he would've done without Fuji-nee. It was really terrifying, actually, to remember the time right after his Father died in the light of Taiga not being there. He wasn't sure he could keep going if Taiga wasn't around to brighten up breakfasts and dinners.

Out of nowhere, a giant shadow landed directly behind Taiga. Before anyone could react, a massive, hairy hand lanced out to snatch her up. As everyone tried to make sense of a piece of darkness detaching from the trees to attack Taiga, the shadow leapt off into the trees of the island and dissappeared as if it had never been there at all.

Shirou stared at where Taiga had been for all of a split second before he sprinted off into the forest, screaming her name. "Fuji-neeeeeee!"

Miu leapt up and called for him. "Wait Shirou! We should get the others to help out!" She gritted her teeth as Shirou also faded into the shadows, but Apachai stood up and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Apachai will go get the rest of the Masters, you go after Shirou!"

Miu nodded at him and sprinted off into the forest after Shirou. Apachai stood there for a moment, then fell to the ground and grew an air of depression. "Lying feels so bad!"

Shigure came from the water and patted Apachai on the shoulder, nodding in sympathy.

Shirou panted heavily, somehow stumbling through the pitch black forest. He had to catch up to Fuji-nee, he had to save her! He didn't care if he wasn't strong enough, he didn't care if he burned his life away, he didn't care if this whole island burned, but he had to save Fuji-nee!

"Ha...Guh!" He tripped on a log and fell into a ravine. Only his training with Koetsuji-sensei let him roll upright and get right back to running. This was nothing, he could easily plow through this damn island. The darkness parted before him, and Shirou saw a cliff. He looked down and saw only darkness, but just across the way he could see the forest start up again, only eight meters. He couldn't jump it, but Shirou didn't care. He would make it no matter what.

"Wait, Shirou!" Shirou glanced at Miu but ignored her. He backed up and put his foot on a buried rock, ready to push off and sprint up to the lip of the cliff. "Wait!" Shirou tensed and took his first step, only a dozen more to the edge. He had to build up enough speed to hopefully make it to the other side. He would climb up the rocks after he caught a vine or something. "I said WAIT!" Shirou collapsed to the ground, head ringing from the fury powered kick.

Miu stood over him, her upraised fist shaking and eyebrows twitching. "You IDIOT! I told you to wait!" She heaved a sigh and lowered her hand. "I know you're worried, but you can't just run blindly across the island trying to find her." She reached down to Shirou, giving him a half-smile. "Don't worry, Apachai already went and got the Masters, and they're searching the island for her as well. They will surely save Taiga-sensei."

Shirou batted the hand away and stood up as fast as he could. "That's not good enough! I have to find her; I have to save her! Why else would I be going through all of this training, dammit!" He punched a nearby tree as hard as he could, shattering the dry bark and making his fist bleed. He turned around and went further back, making to leap across the chasm again. "I know it took her this way, I just know! Now don't get in my way!" Sprinting full speed, he went right past Miu and jumped as far and hard as he could.

The darkness rushed up to meet him, a strange rushing silence filling his ears that was so different from the crackling flames of hell, but no less terrifying. Shirou grunted, and threw out his hand. It caught on a protruding branch with a mighty tug and he nearly dislocated his shoulder. Growling, Shirou clawed his way up the cliff, hand over hand and foot over foot.

Even his inability to see handholds wouldn't stop him, he simply shoved his fingers into the slim cracks in the rock and soft dirt, ignoring the blood and struggling still higher. He cursed himself for his weakness, knowing that every second made the trail colder. All of that time in the forest with Kousaka-sensei had paid off, his ability to spot the small signs of disturbance his only way to survive the hundreds of prepared traps. There was little evidence, but a big footprint here and there made the trail clear. He was surprised that whatever it was could leave so little indication of its passage, because it was huge and heavy enough to crack a tree in half at one point.

But Shirou would not fail here, he couldn't and he wouldn't.

As he finally reached the top of the cliff, he almost faltered when his hand didn't catch anything, finally above the line of the rock wall. Flailing for a grip, he felt something strong grasp his arm and pull. Still panting, Shirou looked up to see Miu smiling hesitantly at him and holding his hand. "I'm sorry that I told you to sit back and wait while your big sister was in trouble, Shirou. How about we search for her together."

Shirou caught his breath and nodded, shooting her a half smile and focusing on finding the trail. He spotted a couple of broken branches and confirmed that something heavy had snapped them off as it landed from a gigantic leap. He ran on, determined to find Taiga.

Miu watched him run and, even in the midst of the dark night searching desperately for a missing friend, tried to puzzle out Shirou. 'He really is a strong guy, he probably would have found his own way even without Ryozanpaku.' At the same time, she was worried about his single-mindedness. 'Can the Masters teach him to think in a situation like this?'

Shirou held up a hand, the signs he had noticed becoming more frequent. Deciding to give it a go, he found one of the broken branches and breathed deeply. Again, just like whenever he had a chance in his training with the Masters, he constructed his circuit as quickly as possible. The intense burn, like a flaming sword cutting down his back, made him hiss in pain, but Shirou ignored it and opened his eyes. Focusing on the branch, he reached down and touched it. "Trace. On." He whispered. Miu was overhead, trying to find her own evidence to follow.

The Structural Grasp reeled off information in his mind's eye, drawing the shape of the branch. But that wasn't enough for Shirou. It rarely happened when he practiced his magecraft over the years, almost never in fact, but sometimes he got a little bit more than just the basic structure. Sometimes, he managed to get things to fill that hollow form, things like history. Right now, that was what he focused on. He found nothing of interest, as only the image of a broken branch appeared in his mind. Shirou felt a simmering anger rise up.

_Even now! Even after all of that work it wasn't enough! I'm WEAK!_

The branch creaked under the weight of his grip, but Shirou wasn't done. He didn't care if he fried his spine, he didn't care if he was paralyzed, he just wanted to find his Fuji-nee! The image in his mind changed, information scrolling down it, new images flashing and strange feelings. Shirou grasped that with all of his willpower, searching for the history of the branch.

_There!_

He jumped up, calling to Miu. "We're close! This branch broke maybe three minutes ago!"

Miu landed next to him in a crouch, eyeing the surroundings. "Are you sure?"

Shirou was happy that she didn't ask him how he knew, and just nodded, "Positive."

Slowly, the two crept out, cautious now that their quarry was near. They didn't want it to run off again with Taiga.

After padding softly through the thick forest, Miu and Shirou froze. Miu from long honed instincts gained by travelling with her grandfather and constantly training at Ryozanpaku. Shirou from his recent spat of near death experiences courtesy of insane Masters.

"Groooaaaarrr!" The roar resounded through the forest, and something truly massive smashed aside a tree, stepping into a clearing across from Miu and Shirou. Taiga was dropped, unconscious, to the ground near the monster. Far taller than either of them, covered in shaggy fur and with a long, grimy mane of dark hair down its back, the beast appeared ape-like in its hunched over yet bipedal stance. A great aura, one of unbridled ferocity and uncontrolled anger pressed down on them both, Shirou practically falling to the ground at the feeling while Miu fell back a step, her experience failing her.

At seeing Taiga, though, something firmed up in Shirou. He straightened, getting into the stance that had been taught to him by his Masters. Yes, this is what he had trained for, to have the strength to save others. The fact that it was Fuji-nee merely increased his focus. "Miu, you get Fuji-nee out of here as fast as you can, I'll distract that thing."

Miu had felt aura's like this before, weighty ki's so great that even well trained mercenaries used to being surrounded by death would faint in fear. If she had to compare it, it would easily equal and maybe even exceed the Masters of Ryozanpaku. Her surprise at finding something so dangerous on the island was only matched by her surprise that Shirou was still standing. Even she was feeling weak at the knees. Wierdly, the aura felt familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. Before she could tell Shirou that he should run with Taiga while she distracted this thing, Shirou sprinted straight ahead, throwing himself at the foe.

It was swift, and it was brutal. Shirou was beaten to the ground with only a few hits, each so fast that Miu saw nothing whatsoever. The hits were not controlled, and they had no style whatsoever: they were attacks from a wild beast, some creature with such natural power that it could pound through anything without worry about technique. "Shirou!"

Miu ran over to Shirou, more worried about him than Taiga now. She reached him, still keeping an eye on where the creature growled threateningly over Taiga. Before she reached him, however, Shirou's hand shot up to grab a branch, breaking it in his efforts to stand. He struggled upright, staggering drunkenly but refusing to back down, still gripping the branch. She heard him murmur something, much like he had earlier while tracking, but she ignored that to reach out and grab his shoulder. "Shirou! You need to stay back! I'll try and get through to escape with Taiga, but I can't run with the both of you!" Honestly, she wasn't sure of her chances against that thing, but that wouldn't stop her. She would find some way to succeed.

Shirou ignored her completely, standin hunched over and glaring challengingly at the beast. A low growl rumbled in his throat, and for a second, Miu didn't recognize this animalistic, dangerous person before her. He was bloody, and beaten, but that wasn't what had changed. Normally, he had nothing but a steely determination in his eyes, a will to go on strong enough that it didn't even bend in the face of the hellish training at Ryozanpaku. Now there was something else, a burning fire and smoky skies and charred death, a hellscape that seemed to find a home in those eyes.

Miu froze, unable to get the momentary image out of her mind. The eyes just burned into her soul, an image so alien that she couldn't get rid of it.

Shirou stalked past her, his growl growing into a roar. "Give! Back! FUJI-NEE!" He charged, running as fast as he possibly could and crashing through the underbrush. He raised the thick branch he had snapped from a tree and reinforced with magecraft, swinging with all of his might at the shaggy dark form that towered over him without moving.

The monster opened its mouth, releasing a steamy breath that curled around its eyes. With lightning like swiftness, it struck, shattering the branch with a sound like a wrecking ball and continuing on to Shirou. But Shirou took the blow solidly on his arms and slammed backwards into a tree, still standing. The monster cocked its head, glancing at its hand, before it released a rumbling growl that rose and fell. Shirou charged again, and Miu shook herself free of the stunned stupor that had taken hold of her. "Stop, Shirou!" she cried. Realizing her cry would have no effect before she voiced it, Miu leaped into action. In his blind rush, filled with anger or simple protective panic, Shirou moved through the forest without grace, falling back on whatever natural skill had been instilled within him by the Masters but otherwise running through and over any obstacles.

Miu was far more levelheaded in her efforts, going above the entangling choke of branches and taking to higher and clearer routes. She was, however, to late to catch Shirou before he got within reach of the monster. Angling herself accordingly, Miu maneuvered such that when Shirou got thrown back by a snap kick, she caught him and bled off most of the momentum in a tumble. By that time, Shirou was so blind to his surroundings that he treated her like just another tree trunk, pushing away and renewing his assault immediately. Miu muttered something rather shocking that she had picked up from the mercenaries that her Grandfather regularly crushed on their travels, and got up quickly. This time, she caught Shirou before he could get more than a few paces away from her.

In the midst of struggling to control him, she growled, "Snap out of it Shirou!" Twisting, she threw him to the ground. The impact barely phased Shirou, who glared at her and moved to get up. "Nuh-uh!" she snarled. Swiftly, Miu brought her foot down on one of Shirou's shoulders and forced him to the ground. "You need to calm down and think! I'll-"

The creature had stalked forward as the two struggled, and took advantage of Miu's distraction with completely unexpected stealth. All Shirou saw was another black blur and Miu disappeared mid-word, to be replaced with the nightmare visage of whatever he was fighting. Without pause, Shirou roared wordlessly and swung another reinforced stick upwards. It collided almost as an afterthought with a massive arm, which swept Shirou up and threw him across the clearing and further from Taiga.

Now twice as fearful, and thus twice as angry, Shirou shot up and spat blood. Yet another charge met with zero success.

Again and again, Shirou charged at the monolithic shadow, grabbing random branches and charging in, finding a new one after each shattered ineffectually. After a while, he stopped using the branches and limited skill he had with weapons and simply moved in with the Martial Arts taught to him by the Masters at Ryozanpaku. Throws, karate strikes, elbows, knees, kicks. He tried it all, but nothing got through.

Still, he got up to charge blindly in again, roaring every time he stood.

His skin began to open, his body started to break, and his blood stained the clearing, but still Shirou attacked. Nearby, unable to move with her body inexplicably paralyzed, Miu couldn't tear her eyes away. She hated it, to watch Shirou tear himself apart, smashing his body against an immovable wall without stopping. And she couldn't manage anything to stop it: not even a scream.

Finally, after a countless number of attacks, Shirou paused, panting. He stumbled against a tree, doing his best to keep standing and relying on the solid wood to stay up. At least one of his arms was broken, and maybe even a rib, but he ignored it. One of his legs was undoubtedly cracked somewhere along its length, but the pain had become to prevalent for him to pinpoint the source. He glared at the monster, unable to find a way to get past, but refusing to give up.

He made to stagger forwards, pain shooting through his whole body but his mouth roaring a defiant challenge. "Goddamit you bastaaaard!" But even as he moved forwards into a jerky run, the monster reached down and grabbed Taiga. Eyes widening, Shirou reached forwards, run getting steadier despite his cracked bones and mind-numbing pain. His nerves burned from the force of his haphazard Reinforcements, his joints creaked from the abuse, and he could barely see out of one eye, but still his legs regained their equilibrium and moved faster than they ever had before.

It wasn't enough, and the monster leapt back into the darkness, dissappearing like it was never there. "No! NO!" Shirou collapsed to one knee, hand reaching outwards. The last push by his legs had been to much, consuming the last of his energy that had already been burnt by a day of training and the endless sprint through the forest. "no..." He pitched forwards, mouth colliding with the dirt and leaves and making it hard to breath.

Shirou tried to struggle back to his knees, but he couldn't manage it. Despite his body and mind struggling in unison, he couldn't do it. Tears gathered in his eyes, hot tears of helpless rage and fury. A furious self-hatred burned.

'I'm still helpless, still unable to save anyone. I might as well have died in that fire, for all the good I've done. Is this all that my efforts amount too?'

"Damn, kid. You look like shit." Shirou looked up, vision blurry and unfocused. He could just make out the form of Sakaki, standing over him with a look of extreme concern, and maybe just a hint of pain.

Shirou gasped, forcing out words. He couldn't do this, he still wasn't strong enough, but maybe his Masters could. "Sa-...Sakaki...p-please. Save Fuji-nee..! Please...!"

Sakaki knelt, patting Shirou on the shoulder. "You done good, kid. You just sit back, this one's for the Masters to take care of."

Shirou closed his eyes, his body finally giving out, and he knew no more.

"What the hell Elder! Did you have to go that hard on the kid!" Sakaki raged, eyes wide and glaring and shirt slowly tearing under the force of his clenching and unclenching muscles. Sakaki looked a second away from ripping into the Elder with everything he had.

The old man held up a hand, face not quite grim but close enough. "Wait, Sakaki. You must hear the explanation from Akisame. It was not my idea, but I find myself agreeing with his reasoning."

Sakaki grit his teeth, the grinding audible, but finally grunted and backed down. "Fine, but if I don't like the reason we might just find out who the strongest in the dojo is." Though Sakaki was no longer chomping at the bit, his stance was still tense and about to burst.

"Ho ho! Are you worried about our Disciple, Sakaki?" Sakaki blinked and then looked away from the Elder.

He roared out a hasty response. "N-no! I just don't think it's right for a Master to beat on his Disciple for no reason is all!"

Miu blinked, then finally put together the pieces. When the Elder had first jumped into the clearing, carrying Taiga, she had merely watched in confusion as he tapped in a couple of places. When she found herself able to move, she stood and rushed over to check on Shirou. Now, she stood up sharply as it all came together. She blinked again, then marched right up to her grandfather. She glared and released her anger at him. "Grandfatheeerr. If you don't have a reeeaaaallly good explanation for this I will never forgive you. I might not forgive you even if you do have a good explanation."

Hayato Furinji, the Invincible Superman, died a little on the inside, but he couldn't let his granddaughter know that. "O-oh. Just wait a second Miu, I was just following Akisame on this."

The aforementioned man walked into the clearing, sighing. "My my, it seems that I will be facing the inquisition on my own."

Sakaki immediately forgot all awkwardness and bristled again. "Alright, Akisame, now why did we really need to do this? And don't give me any bullshit about training the kid to face his fears, he obviously didn't need that."

Apachai poked Shirou off to the side while Shigure worked to bandage him. "Apapapapa. Not even I beat him up this badly." Shigure slowly nodded in agreement.

Akisame sighed again, but nodded in acquiesence. Ma jumped down from a tree and walked over to Shirou, helping to check him over. Akisame glanced over but quickly turned back. "Well, I'm sure you have all noticed Shirou's tendency to take on all of his problems on his own, right?"

Ma nodded over Shirou and Sakaki grunted an affirmative. The Elder watched everyone and Miu thought a bit before nodding. Apachai put a finger to his mouth and looked confused, before finally hitting his fist in his palm and nodding vigorously. Shigure slowly nodded as well. Taiga snored in a corner of the clearing, fast asleep.

Akisame waited for everyone to think it over then got on with his reasoning. "It's more than that, really. Shirou has, for what reason I am not sure, a deep seated aversion to saddling others with his problems. That actually extends over to us Masters. I am slightly surprised that he joined our dojo and asked for our help in the first place." Ma finished pouring something down Shirou's throat, and Shirou twitched a bit before settling down and letting out his own loud snore. The tension in the clearing dropped another notch at that.

"I did this because Shirou needed to realize that he cannot triumph over every obstacle on his own. It is good that he wishes to do so, but we are his Masters for a reason. Our duty is to train him so that he can solve his own problems one day, but we cannot do that if he refuses to ask for help. If he had not learned this lesson now, then it is possible that we would be too late to teach him. We at Ryozanpaku have many powerful enemies, and it would be just like Shirou to try and fight them on his own to help us, even though he would not be able too."

Sakaki rocked back on his feet after the silence had stretched on for half a minute. He whistled. "So that's the reason you had the Elder kidnap his adopted sister, race off through the forest, beat him half to death, and then escape and ultimately make our Disciple fail?"

At Akisame's nod, Sakaki rushed forward with blinding speed, his punch meeting Akisame's own block. The two crashed off through the forest, trees shattering and bushes losing all of their leaves in an instant under the flurry of blows. Everyone else in the clearing turned to the Elder, who watched the two Master martial artists smash their way across the island. Miu glared at him, and he sighed. "Sometimes, Miu, when two men disagree they have to fight it out. They will be done by morning."

Miu kicked him in the shin, then 'hmphed' and turned away to go help take care of Shirou. She called back over her shoulder, "Well, Grandfather, when a grandaughter disagrees with her grandfather she gives him the cold shoulder."

Ma stood on a tree branch and gently patted the Elder's shoulder as the 80+ year old martial artist dropped his head and quietly cried.

* * *

_Couldn't save anyone, wouldn't save anyone, to afraid, to weak, to helpless, didn't save anyone._

Shirou gasped, drawing in a breath so quickly he choked on the air.

"Easy there, Shirou, just slow down and breath." Ma pushed Shirou back down, checking to make sure the bandages hadn't been loosened. Shirou took a second to calm down, then the pain lanced through his body again.

"Guh!" Shirou grunted, his body reflexively tensing at the phantom stabbing but only increasing the pain. A needle darted into his neck and Shirou felt his body instantly relax back against the wooden floor. The lessening of the pain was a little like going from freezing snow to a warm bath, simultaneously shocking and calming.

He let his body settle for a while, trying to catalogue the damage and recall what had happened the night before. His right arm was incredibly stiff, apparently in a cast of some sort, and he had trouble breathing with the wrappings on his chest. Even his jaw was hard to move under all of the dressings. He wasn't entirely sure, but he felt like he might have broken an ankle stumbling around after the giant shadow...

Giant shadow! "Fuji-nee!" Shirou tried to sit up again, but Ma placed another hand on his chest.

Sakaki leaned against the wall nearby, sporting a black eye and one of his many replacement jackets. "She's just fine, Shirou."

A loud shout rang through the little wooden house, "Shirou-kun is awake!" Rapid thumping approached the room Shirou lay in, accompanied by a slowly increasing yell, "Shhhiiiiiirrrrooooouuuuu-kkkuuuuuuunnnnn!" The sliding door slammed open with a wall shattering bang, and Taiga zoomed through the opening to hug Shirou.

"Gwaaahh! F-Fuji-nee, that hurts!" Shirou flailed uselessly in her grip, unable to move for the pain yet unable to stop struggling for the same reason. "Get off Fuji-nee!"

Taiga ignored him, sweeping him back and forth in her exuberance. "I was so worried when I saw you! It was even worse than when Apachai spars with you, it was so horrible!" She shot a heated glare over Shirou's shoulder at the Masters in her view, then went back to smothering Shirou with her hug.

Shirou was reduced to shouting incoherently from the pain. "Gyaaaa!"

After a while, Taiga sat back and wiped her eyes. Shirou stopped yelling and sighed, glancing away from her and lifting a hand to cover his face. "Fuji-nee, do you always have to act so childishly?"

Taiga smiled and bopped him on the head, then stood up proudly and nodded sharply. "Hmph. Of course I do, Shirou-kun! You're always so busy working and trying to be responsible that if I didn't do that you'd end up all gloomy and boring!"

Shirou faced her and smiled, but it slowly turned into something more serious, something ironclad. "Fuji-nee, I swear that I will become strong enough to protect you no matter what. I won't ever let you get into a situation like that again."

Taiga scowled and kicked him in the side. "Hey now, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You need to laugh more!"

Shirou rubbed his smarting stomach and grumbled. "Stupid Fuji-nee. I try to be serious and she kicks me."

*Whack* Taiga sniffed imperiously and walked out. "And don't you forget it."

Sighing and rubbing his head, which had a new ache on top of all the others, Shirou fell back against the pillow and stared resolutely at the ceiling. He knew, somehow, that all of his Masters were listening from around the room. Probably all the times they eavesdropped on him during training. He huffed a laugh and pushed down the pain of his broken ribs and stretched cuts. Reinforced splinters really were like shrapnel. "Masters, you have way to much free time."

He smiled and turned his head to face Sakaki, who sported a few bruises in addition to his black eye. He struggled upright, shrugging off Ma's protests, and got in a position where he could give a half bow. "Thank you, Sakaki-sensei, for saving Fuji-nee." He paused, and blinked. "I...I really don't know what I would do without her."

Breathing deeply, he turned to Akisame, who was sitting at one of the doors that opened to the outside, quietly observing the mountainous island. "I am sorry that I could not understand your lesson from the other day, Koetsuji-sensei. But I would like to thank you for what you tried to teach me and say that I finally understand what you wanted me to learn."

He continued to face Akisame, but he pitched his voice to address the whole room and all of his Masters. "I want to thank you all for going to so much trouble to train me in Martial Arts, and I want to say that I will be sure to come to you all for help whenever I cannot solve a problem on my own."

Akisame imperceptibly relaxed, and Sakaki let out a slow breath, looking away from his Disciple. He spoke up, "Hey now, brat, don't give me all the credit. Akisame worked pretty hard to get your big sister back as well."

The doorway that Taiga had left through slid open and the Elder loomed through it. "Ho ho. Sakaki don't tell me-"

A beer bottle shot through the air and cut the Elder off, while Sakaki stalked away in the opposite direction. "Don't even think about it old man."

Shirou made a quiet vow as he watched his Masters get back to their usual antics. 'I will get as strong as they are,' he silently vowed to himself. 'I will work until I can save everyone with my own hands. That is all I can do.'

Akisame turned to face Shirou, his eyes small lasers of yellow light. "Shirou, I believe that you are ready for technique training."

The whites of his eyes showing clearly, Shirou gulped. That couldn't be good.

* * *

A/N: So...how do beta's work? I would really like one, because I have about 30k words written beyond this point, but I'm unsatisfied. I'm putting up this chapter even though the Sakura and Miu scene, which is crazy important, isn't...getting the point across maybe. Or maybe it's to blunt. And sorry for taking so long, but that Sakura and Miu scene was a bitch to get down on paper.

Anyways, here comes the plot train. It should hit hard and fast, and mostly differently from Kenichi's story. Same characters, different settings and ideals, lead to different paths for people.

Writing a crossover is a lot like playing different routes for a visual novel, except that whatever I say goes.

Comments, questions? R/R and all that. Thanks for the previous ones, they always make me think.

Oh yeah, and this title isn't a reference to Kanye's song, cause I titled it before his album came out.


	3. When it Rains

Shirou walked through the halls of Ryozanpaku, strangely relieved to be back. He was apparently going to start the technique training or something like that as soon as his broken bones were fully set. It was a little awkward to move, but Shirou guessed the training at Ryozanpaku had somehow increased his ability to heal. That, or Wolverine was his ancestor, because there was no other explanation for healing from broken bones in less than a week. At this rate he'd be ready for training within two more days.

Well, there was magecraft, but that idea was ridiculous. Neither he nor the Masters knew any healing magecraft.

A loud bang sounded, and Shirou whipped around to see a soaking wet Shinji panting against the wall nearby. Confused, Shirou watched his old friend glance around the wooden hall wildly before catching sight of Shirou. Shinji sagged in momentary relief before he shot up and ran at Shirou, hands waving in panic. "Dammit Emiya, what in the name of god is this hellhole!?"

Shirou raised an eyebrow at him but shrugged. "This is the dojo where I train, Ryozanpaku."

Shinji put his hands on his knees and panted from the effort of his run. He glared with one eye at Shirou. "Only an idiot like you would find a place like this to train at, Emiya."

Shirou pretty much ignored him and asked the question that had been rebounding in his head like a superball. "Why are you here, Shinji?"

Shinji straightened up, his breathing level, and got a simultaneously desperate and surprised look on his face. "Oh crap, that's right!" He reached over and grabbed onto Shirou's shoulders, staring him in the eyes, "You're still my friend, right Shirou?"

Shirou nodded mutely and tried to figure out where this was going, getting worried at Shinji's normally superior tone being so frantic. Shinji didn't leave him long to wonder. "Someone kidnapped Sakura, and I need your help to save her. Some guy named Takeda, a boxer or something. He said he wanted to fight you."

Shirou's eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed into daggers. He grabbed Shinji's arm and started to pull him to the front gate of Ryozanpaku. "Come on, let's go Shinji. You take me there and I'll deal with the rest."

As the two made it out of the dojo and into the heavy, warm summer rain, a pair of dark presences appeared behind Shinji, bringing him to a halt and causing Shirou to stumble at the jerk of force.

Shigure and Apachai loomed over the suddenly cowering Shinji, their eyes glowing in the localized thunderstorm. "I sense...something evil."

"Apapapa. Apachai will kill the evil creature." Shinji nearly wet his pants at the look in the Death God of Muay Thai's eyes, but Shirou stepped between them and gestured to Shinji.

"Wait, Masters. This is my friend Shinji Matou. Shinji, these are two of my Masters, Apachai Hopachai and Shigure Kousaka." Shigure and Apachai continued to stare the cowering Shinji down, but they finally relented after Shirou scratched the back of his head nervously and coughed into his had. "Oh yeah, and...uh...do you two have any advice for fighting a boxer?"

Apachai brightened, "If you are fighting a boxer, kill him using Muay Thai!"

Shirou stared at the bouncy giant for a second before turning to Shigure, who pointed to a corner. Shirou and Shinji both turned to look and saw a large bow with numerous steel-tipped arrows. "Use...my bow."

Shirou waved his hands in front of himself, "U-uh...no that's okay. Thank you for the advice, Masters."

Sakaki leaned out from an open door further down the hall. "Oi, Shirou. You goin' out to fight a boxer?"

Shirou turned around and yelled back. "Yeah! You got any advice for me Sakaki-sensei?"

"Low kicks! Use low kicks!" Shirou scratched his head but nodded.

As he turned around to go, dragging the shaking Shinji, Shirou raised his hand. "I'll be sure to remember that, Sakaki-sensei. Thank you!"

* * *

Shirou walked down the steps that led towards the underground flood channels of Fuyuki. Years ago, there had been rumors that a serial killer had used them for his killings, and after that they had become something of an underground crime haven. With the Yakuza, a large portion of whom were under Fujimura-sama's control, staking out most of the above ground territory, most of the younger gangs and hotshot teenagers would gather in large numbers using the flood channels.

This was where Takeda had taken Sakura after kidnapping her, all so that he could fight Shirou.

Shirou burned. He must not fail. He had replaced the casts with tight wrappings, but he still couldn't afford to take many hits on the recently mended injuries, and his mobility was limited by his weak ankle. His fingers were still raw from sharp rocks and rough branches, and if he took one to many shots to the ribs, breathing could become a chore. But, it was the same as with Fuji-nee. He would not fail, even if his body broke, he would not fail.

Sakura had only helped him for maybe three weeks before he rushed off to join Ryozanpaku, but she had still stuck around to clean his house and cook dinners. Now, he'd only really known her well for about three months, but none of that mattered, because Shirou would have saved her even if he didn't know her name.

The fact that it was Sakura only increased his will to succeed.

"Takeda, is that you!" Shirou's shouted accusation echoed up and down the concrete pillars and empty space.

Four people were arrayed near one of the support pillars, the area lit by the orange glow of electric lamps fixed into the ceiling far above. Sitting against the pillar with her arms wrapped around her knees was Sakura. The three boys that had ambushed Shirou two weeks ago leaned against the pillar around her, but Takeda kicked off to walk over to Shirou, smirking at him. "So, you really came to some dark underground chamber just to help out a friend. You're even more of an idiot than I took you for."

Shirou glared at Takeda. "I'm here, and I'll fight you, so let Sakura go."

Sakura was staring wide eyed at Shirou, alternating between him and Shinji. Takeda scoffed then waved at Shinji, "So you went and got him, huh? Fine, fine, take your sister and go, punk. Pretty girls like that don't belong in places like this."

Shinji rushed over to grab Sakura, who shrank back against the pillar for a moment before opening her mouth. "Nii-san, what is thi-" Shinji knelt down next to her and put his hand on her mouth. Out loud, he said "Quiet, Sakura. We need to get you out of here."

Standing her up, he leaned in close and hissed into her ear. "Shut up if you know what's good for you. If you say ANYTHING, I'll tell grandfather about your little crush."

Sakura froze up, but Shinji managed to cajole her along towards the stairs. She glanced back at Shirou one more time, then lowered her head and continued up the stairs.

Takeda watched them go with a strange light in his eyes, then turned back to Shirou. "Did you really come down here just because that kid asked you too?"

Shirou nodded, "Of course, all he had to do was ask. Even if it hadn't been Shinji or Sakura, I would have come down here if I knew about it. I can't stand by if I know that someone needs saving."

Takeda gaped at him, then turned to Ukita and Koga and said, "Can you believe this kid?" He started to laugh, holding a hand to his head and leaning backwards from the force of his mirth. "Oh man! He's like a Power Ranger! Hahahah!" After a while, he slowed down to merely snickering and turned hard eyes on Shirou. "You really would do something like that? Risk yourself for some random person?" He leaned forwards and punched the pillar with all of his might, cracking his knuckles and cracking the enamel over the concrete. His eyes glared at Shirou with hate, "I really can't stand people like that."

Shirou, no longer worried about Sakura, just gazed calmly back. "If I walked away without fighting you, you would just go after Sakura again wouldn't you?" At Takeda's nod, Shirou continued. "And if I just let you beat me up, you would go after her again and not let her go next time."

Takeda smiled, "Looks like you understand. Maybe you aren't to much of a fool to understand the real world. Just an idiot with an invincibility complex."

Shirou closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, his ribs twinging but holding firm. He expelled the breath slowly and got into a Muay Thai stance, deciding to take his Master's advice. Minus the killing and deadly weapons part...for this juvenile threat. Takeda smirked, settling into a boxing stance. He lightly jumped back and forth, speaking as he got ready. "You know, I used to be a boxer, and my best punch was my left. It still probably is, but I decided that I needed to make my right strong as well." He threw a few practice punches, even swifter than the day before now that he was fired up. "While I was at it, I took my footwork up a notch too." He darted forwards, throwing a punch that Shirou knocked aside, and then he darted back out of range, smiling. "I want to fight you without rules, no holding back and no stopping until one of us can no longer go on. Whaddya say?"

Shirou responded by advancing and throwing a punch. Takeda smirked and leaned in to throw his own punch. "HA!" Shirou extended his fist, fully intending to end the fight right then and there, but Takeda suddenly drew his head back and the punch missed. As Shirou pulled back into his guard, Takeda's fist darted out and got him right on the chin, twice before Shirou managed to step backwards and get his guard up.

Shirou focused past the daze in his head, his body protesting at the return to the daily beating routine so soon after the last meat grinder, and made to attack again, but Takeda was gone.

A thunderous straight smashed into the side of Shirou's head, sending him staggering. Takeda jumped right back in and followed up, but Shirou kept up his guard and started to block all of the punches by instinct alone. Still rattled, he retreated before the dancing boxer, unable to keep up for fear that he might overextend and ruin his ankle and unwilling to simply force his way forwards thanks to his healing arm. Takeda scoffed, throwing more punches at the less than stable Shirou. "What the hell is this? Is this all the resolve you have when you want to save people? I'll tell you right now, you'll only end up with regrets and pain. Hell, even your friend just ran off without thanking you."

Takeda closed, refusing to let up in this fight, but Shirou suddenly threw a wild elbow, stepping into a hit to get the attack in. Takeda smirked as he backed up, only to gasp in pain and stumble to the side at a sharp blow to his knee. He glanced down and realized that Shirou had thrown a kick along with that elbow.

Glancing back up, Takeda looked into Shirou's eyes and found the fire that he wanted to face. He smiled. "There it is! I knew you had it in you! I don't know what got you to finally fight back, but this is what I was waiting for."

Shirou spit to the side, a little bit of blood flying. From what he could tell, he had managed to complete the loss of a tooth today. "You wanna know why I'm fighting back now? It's because I will never back down from my ideal!"

Takeda looked a little surprised, then chuckled again. "What the hell, just like a shounen manga." He mirrored the spit. "Alright, I'll bite kid. You tell me your story and I'll tell you mine."

Shirou stared at the boxer incredulously, but shook his head and relented. He didn't really care to defend his ideal to others, he just wanted to follow it. But this situation, the whole atmosphere, was just so completely different from what he was used to that he decided to just go with it. "Fine. You want my answer? It's simple. I will never run away from a person in need, no matter what. My only goal is to save people, to save everyone: that is my ideal."

Takeda shook his head and laughed darkly, getting out of his stance. "I can't believe you can say that out loud in the real world. You seriously are just an idiot." He lowered his eyes and glanced to the side, then locked eyes with Shirou. "Then, how about I disillusion you from that little fantasy of yours."

Takeda's stare was level, a flat and truthful look and tone. "You, are the pinnacle of idiots. At least I can understand putting yourself on the line for your friends, but even that is a foolish idea." Takeda leaned back to look down at Shirou. "I told you I was a boxer right? Well, I don't like to brag, but I was one of the best new boxers to hit the ring. Even better, I had a friend who was advancing right along with me named Akeshita." Takeda went quiet for a bit then continued. "But, well, he got in a fight. A big fight with a bunch of thugs armed with bats, pipes, two-by-fours; you name it, they had it. He called me and I came running, cause he was my brother, you know? Even if I did have an important match the next day, I had to go. We fought 'em off, the two of us."

Takeda glared at the ground, gritting his teeth. "Of course, I didn't go to the match the next day, or any others again. I got injured, I got injured bad, and because of that my boxing career ended." He laughed, a bitter laugh that was a strange mixture of self-condemnation, anger at the world, and regret. "My friend, though, he went on to the professional arena. And you know what? He didn't even really care that I was around, cause he was too damn busy training."

Crazed, furious and desperate eyes turned on Shirou. "I've been fighting on the street since then, for no reason at all. But really, there is one thing I can't stand, and that's bastards like you! I won't feel relieved until I've made you realize the truth! That all you'll be left on this path is loss and regret!" He sprang forwards, right fist lancing in to take Shirou down.

Shirou felt his body burn with a new fire, a familiar fire. It was the fire that drove him onwards, the fire that made him face a shadowy monster in a dark forest without regards for his circumstances. He felt that fire and welcomed it, like an old friend.

After all, hadn't he been born in fire?

Takeda's blow was coming in on Shirou's left side, his weak side. Takeda couldn't see the splint, covered as it was by Shirou's customary baggy long-sleeve shirts, but as an experienced fighter he'd picked up on the stiff and hesitant way that Shirou used that arm. He hoped to force Shirou to bring both arms into play lest the weak one give out.

Shirou gritted his teeth and blocked with his splinted arm, knocking the punch aside and aiming straight for the blindspot created. Takeda tried to withdraw, but Shirou stepped forwards and hammered his punch home. He advanced, throwing elbows and low kicks with abandon until Takeda was staggering drunkenly. Reaching up, he grabbed Takeda's head and pulled it down to knee him, but Takeda managed to hold up a hand and block the knee. Shirou continued anyways and twisted his hands to grab Takeda's collar and throw him overhead, ignoring the strain on his ankle and his pained ribs.

Takeda slammed into the concrete floor, the wind knocked out of him and his brain rattled from the constant assault. He tried to gasp in a breath but found himself unable to draw in the dank air of the flood channel. Shirou loomed over him, his eyes lit by an inner flame that cast a clear light. "I don't care! I will never regret the path I take, and I will never regret what I lose so long as it is on the path to help people." He stepped in closer, catching Takeda's eyes and holding them with his own. "I do not care that Shinji ran off without thanking me, I simply want to help him because it is what I want to do. I don't want anything from those I save, because it is simply the right thing to do!"

A rumble echoed down the flood channel, a rushing sound accompanied by a sudden cool breeze. Takeda stared at Shirou in blank amazement for a moment longer, but when the damp wind hit him he suddenly started. "Shit! That's the damn flood control! What the hell happened to the alarms!"

Koga started off of the wall. "Are you serious!" His voice cracked with fear, "Fuck, I'm outta here! Come on guys!"

Ukita ran over to Takeda as Koga ran off towards the stairs that led out of the tunnels. Grunting in pain, Takeda tried to stand, but gasped and fell back as his battered knees gave out on him. Before he hit the ground, he felt a strong arm wrap around his chest and lift him up. He glanced to the side at Shirou and recoiled. "What the hell? Why are you still here?!"

Shirou grit his teeth against his probably newly resprained ankle and struggled on, holding up Takeda. Ukita jumped in on Takeda's other side and took most of the weight off of Shirou. Growling to force his voice through the pain, Shirou answered vehemently. "I already told you my ideal, so what the hell do you think I'm doing? I'm saving you!"

Takeda gaped at Shirou, then nodded and went grim. "Alright then, lets get the hell out of these tunnels before we're washed away and drown."

Ukita responded angrily. "Can you please not say something so depressing when I'm trying to save your life, Takeda?"

Takeda chuckled and nodded. "Sure, sure Ukita. Let's try and not die then, shall we?"

The three were almost to the steel door that Koga had already sprinted through when it slammed shut with a clang. A light mounted on the inside flashed red, to the mounting terror of the three students. Ukita voiced it most eloquently. "Holy fuck we're gonna die?!"

Shirou kept looking around the dark forest of concrete pillars, then spotted a hint of light. He pointed with is free hand, "Over there! Head for that light!" He put words into action and started to drag Takeda over there, Ukita following a second later.

Takeda growled at them, his voice beginning to be drowned out by the rumbling roar that echoed deafeningly in the chamber. "Dammit you two! Just drop me and run! If you do that you can make it!"

Ukita shook his head at him. "You fight at my side for that long and you think I'll just drop you at the first sign of danger? Hell no, Takeda!"

Shirou stayed silent and struggled on, focusing all of his effort on supporting Takeda and getting them to whatever faint sign of salvation they could find.

Finally, they came upon a hanging ladder that led up to a manhole on the surface, a shaft of pale grey light shining down into the pitch black of the now unlit tunnel.

Shirou gestured to Ukita. "You go up first. You're the freshest and you'll have to help pull Takeda up."

Ukita nodded and jumped up, grasping the rungs and pulling himself upwards. Takeda shook his head at Shirou, sighing. "You idiot, I can't climb a ladder even with you two helping me. Look at you, you can barely stand yourself! I don't know what possessed you to come down here with injuries like that, but it was idiotic."

Shirou growled and shoved Takeda to the ladder, "Just get on the ladder."

The boxer sighed and shrugged his left shoulder, pulling his hand out of his pocket. It fell limply out, unable to lift properly thanks to the injury earned defending his friend. Shirou stared at it and Takeda nodded. "Exactly. Ukita can't hold me with his feet, and you can't lift me like that!" Water had begun to pool at their feet, the first part of the flood arriving. Takeda resorted to raising his voice almost to the level of a yell.

Shirou stared at the limp hand, glanced up at Ukita who was watching them, worried, and then turned back to face Takeda. Without warning, he leaned down and grabbed Takeda around the waist, grunting with effort and lifting him in a fireman's carry. Reaching up with his good hand, Shirou grabbed the ladder and pulled himself up.

Ukita saw what he was doing and curled up on the ladder so that he could reach a hand down. He grabbed Shirou's collar and helped him get high enough for a foothold. Takeda protested the whole time. "You fucking idiot! Just drop me and leave. There's no way we can climb up in time like this!"

The roar of the water even drowned out the shouts now, loud crashes sounding from the rushing river smashing into the pillars. Shirou roared along with the dark mass of water, pouring all of his effort into climbing.

Muscles, trained since he was a child to easily take care of his own movements, and further forged by the hellish physical training of Ryozanpaku, bulged with power and forced him higher. Shirou moved upwards with speed, jumping up with his legs and arm. Ukita climbed above the two, glancing back and staying just ahead of him.

Shirou let go with his free hand and darted his hand higher, his aim just right as he latched onto the next highest rung.

His ribs protested, his ankle ached, and the arm he'd broken less than a week ago barely hung on to Takeda, but Shirou pushed higher. Lunge after lunge, push after push, he climbed as fast as he could. Ukita was forced to speed up, frantically climbing for the safety above.

Below, water smashed through the tunnel they were just in and frothed in the opening of the ladder well, threatening to rise higher.

Shirou continued, knowing that his body would give out if he paused.

Takeda stared at the water below, periodically jostled by the leaping motion of the desperate Shirou, and only able to listen to the pounding beat and furious roar of the tempest in the tunnel below.

When they finally reached the top, Ukita shoved off the manhole cover with a strength born of panicked relief, and clambered out of the tunnel to collapse in the middle of the wet, rainy street.

Shirou threw Takeda out onto the asphalt and half-flopped, half crawled out of the hole, feet hanging over the opening after he finally gave in to exhaustion. A car swerved past them and honked while people cast bewildered glances at the trio or otherwise avoided looking at the teens who seemed to have gotten in a violent disagreement with a meat grinder and a water hose.

The three lay there panting for a while, before Shirou spoke up. "So...I know two really good doctors. Anyone wanna go there?"

* * *

A/N: Short chapter that I just wanted to get out. If anyone is wondering, the flood tunnels come from Fate/Zero when Caster made a lair inside the massive concrete chambers meant to contain overspill from the Fuyuki River and the mountains.


End file.
